If Only

Rating: Null/10 (13 August 2011)

A film angsty teenage girls who like emo-pop videos, combat computer games and sleepovers will love, as well as boys who desire the aforementioned girls. For some of us it will be a film that will play like those moments on American Idol when a very good singer has chosen a song we can't stand because our big sister played it four thousand times on the same day the hamster died. Granted it is often beautiful to look at: beautiful images and sequences with beautiful faces and bodies and beautiful costumes but that is all a bit wasted on a story that tries to be three layers deep but all comes off as a bass relief rather than 3D. I hate saying that. There is a wealth of ideas and not a little love put into it. Here are my if-onlies: If only it didn't remind me of those earnest theatrical plays of plays within plays (within asylums) like Marat/Sade which I knew would be good for me to see (intellectually) but found grim as homework. If only it didn't remind me how daft a lot of action films are which I don't question because they use a cool tough dude to do the far fetched nonsense and not sweet and beautiful girls. If only it didn't occasionally recall scenes from films like The Ring Trilogy, Zathura, Labyrinth and all that Terry Gilliam and Jean-Pierre Jeunet stuff so that the incredibly fertile imagination of the creators looks to have limits. (Yep, that's a back handed compliment.) If only the soundtrack didn't stick itself in your face so much and make you think they were spending whole afternoons trawling You Tube music videos instead of WORKING ON THE SCRIPT!!!! If only the Barbie Doll image for the lead girl hadn't been such a good idea on the one hand but resulted in a lack of emotional involvement on the other. If only I wasn't so critical. But these people can take it. There will be better from them in the future for sure.