No more than a melodrama

Rating: 6/10 (13 February 2014)

A melodrama cramped in too little time, that is what I felt after watching this movie. At first I thought, I should not be so stern, because this is just a children's movie, but during the cause of the movie very strong emotions are displayed, too strong for youth to digest. This is all in all an adult movie, and adult criteria apply. I will not reveal the plot but it is simply too much to believe in. I think the director should have taken out a lot of sidelines, because they are eating away valuable time. Now it seems the story is just tautened between the start and the end. For instance, the details about the sister could go, the teacher is not necessary, the time spent on the grandparents is a waste, the mini plot around lieutenant Kotler is rather superfluous. Instead this time could have been used to make the main plot meander more naturally to its unraveling. Without all these sidelines the solitude of the boy would increase, and the director could have thought about a more acceptable way the boy enters the no-go area. But like it is now, it is just a melodrama.