Sensationally Misguided

Rating: 7/10 (18 March 2019)

While the theme is admirable, the filming suitably claustrophobic, and the actors beyond committed... there are still a lot of missed opportunities with this film. Make no mistake, it is a piece of art that should be discussed and interpreted like any other. My own is that it tragically falls short of a masterpiece. The ingredients were there but cooked incorrectly, separately from one another before being put into a melodramatic bland stew. Adding spice at the end does not fix the taste. It sits on a ledge afraid of its own moral, edging toward a lost sense of "what is happening here" and losing it half way into its own dinner. The tone starts out with solid consistency, trying to clearly slow burn to a metaphor about fame and sensationalism devouring the human element; literally. However, after what feels like a clear psychotic set of "normalized downplayed" psychological abuses; it reverts to intimate finding, then back to the abuse. Now, such is life, right? But the problem here is that despite Jennifer Lawrence's phenomenal pulse of the character, it never quite feels like this gets the meaning it sets out for. Gore can be stunning, meaningful, and poetic. Simply using a poet who achieves fame imagining he can contain it no matter what, is not in itself poetic. Obviously, displacement of real emotions and reactions plays to the decentization of modern social aged indifference. Missed in the climax are the things that made the first half of the movie so interesting; an unnerving but familiar discomfort. It tries too hard to justify itself through Javier Bardem's character, and ironically plays on abuse in a relationship, yet she knows where to draw a clear line. Simplicity in complications only further undresses this as not knowing what's unnerving about itself. Worth a watch, conversation, comparisons, not much more.