Really thoroughly enjoyed but questioned the choices made

Rating: 7/10 (30 January 2012)

The film in terms of theme did exactly what it was supposed to do. It created a world we as an audience invest in. The effect of drugs needs not to be known to audiences before the film, it is what we learn about more than anything- closest to the first hand account I've seen on many films (especially Sara), and it's the directors choices that we engage in and feel the dream like state ourselves in many ways.
However, each character goes on a downwards spiral character arc and each left with a story that goes on from the film that we may never know about. I wouldn't call the end a resolution. The closest character to have a resolution is Harry and so I almost felt let down by the film makers because 3/4 of the way through the film, I realised they were all on a bad arc and it would end bad for all of them, so I expected the end to have a little less prediction. I think if one character managed to struggle out of that spiral, the film would have had more worth.
That being said, I thoroughly enjoyed the film, the style, the acting and the decisions made in terms of camera angles, fisheye, pov etc. It made me want to write about it, so it did have a big impact on me, but the strengths were that I was immersed in a world that had been created and come to life and the weaknesses were that the story-line was unfortunately (regardless of the amount of unexpected events that happened) predictable in the sense that we were led to believe throughout the film that they weren't going to overcome the addiction and therefore we expected what was coming.