a waste of talent, actors, time and money

Rating: 4/10 (13 February 2007)

I was very surprised to see this movie getting so many good reviews and nominations after I saw a sneak preview last night. While I consider myself open minded, especially to fantasy content, I thought this movie was pretty funny. Funny in the sense of having the urge to laugh without being able to stop it. While I really liked the "real" part of the story I totally disliked the "fantasy" part of it. I convinced myself at first, that this was the only way for the girl to escape from the horrible and cruel reality but then it was too strange on the other hand to be just that. The real-world storyline would have made a great movie, exciting and full of statements about the human condition, but the other part was ridiculous. The cinematography wasn't bad in every single scene for itself, but put together it was a little bit overdone. Too many panning shots and repetitions in the camera movements. I really liked the sadistic fascist stepfather character, because it was not a pure monster but a character you could believe in. I have to admit, that the characters were all very well written and the actors underlined this by a very good performance but this horrible story! I can't get over it. I really had to laugh out loudly when I saw the child-eating monster with eyes in his hand. And the fact that the girl had to eat the grapes, leading to just another violent episode, was just unnecessary. And that is exactly the point. This "fairy-tale" was completely ruined by violence and gross scenes. There the fantasy should have been a contrast to the violent reality, which was crass but realistic and believable. Instead it was topped by the fantasy world. And this is exactly why I came to the conclusion that this wasn't just a little girls attempt to flee reality. (besides the complete lack of rational behavior or logic in some of the characters actions). All in all it was a combination of good actors, bad story and overdone cinematography that leads me to only one advice: DON'T PAY TO SEE THIS MOVIE!