One of the WORST Films of 2008

Rating: 1/10 (2 January 2009)

Wow I am shocked at how bad this film was! It was a boring, pointless 2 hour pain that I am surprised has gotten so many great reviews. I think many posters on here miss the point when people like me complain about the movie. I thought Winslet was okay, but seemed mannered and annoying. DiCaprio was just flat out annoying in this. He sounded like a 15 year-old boy at his first high school play. Both actors seemed, again, far too young to be playing these characters. The film lacks story arc, structure, and most importantly...CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT! One of the first things they teach you in film school (Mr. Mendes) is that you need to have CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT to make your audience care about what's happening to the people on screen. This movie opens up with Kate and Leo fighting. We don't care about the fight, however, because we don't know who the hell these people are. As the movie progresses, we still don't see anything hint about who these people are. He works at a boring job. She's a housewife. Gee, like we never have seen one of these stories be told before. And then- nothing happens! There's no plot! The movie is an excuse for Winslet and DiCaprio to have yelling matches together. It's like watching a VH1 reality show shot in 35mm. What's more, we don't feel or care about the characters. When ever Winslet cried, I cringed. It's being touted as one of her best performances? Really? I thought it was mannered, controlled and whiny. She's done billions times better then this stuff. And DiCaprio is just flat-out BAD. Perhaps I would think they did better jobs if I cared at all about the movie's premise. On top of this, the film is morbidly predictable, and cliché. (SPOILER!) When Kate is "Upset" one morning, and having a fit in the kitchen, Leo asks her what's wrong. It's so blatantly obvious she's pregnant, and having "Morning Cramps". And then of course, she says she wants an abortion. I knew what was going to happen before it did. Mendes, a master of storytelling with American BEAUTY and ROAD TO PERDITION, fails so low here I almost feel bad for him. Every shot of this movie looks like its designed for Academy Awards in the Art Direction and Cinematography department. But there's no substance at all to the storytelling. Every shot is a silhouette or closeup of boring dramatic angles that mean nothing other then to have dumb audiences go "Oooo, now that's a great camera angle." If this movie gets nominations from the Oscars (which it will), I will know its because those voters haven't seen the movie yet, and are voting for it on name bases alone. FINAL GRADE: F