Weak

Rating: 1/10 (16 April 2006)

I saw this on the recent DVD release and found it very weak. I've seen others here rave about the performance of the youngest girl. It seemed to me no matter the situation, all she did was present this forced smile which left her face empty of any emotion. The other end of her two color spectrum was the the crying, which seemed more like they just sprayed her face down with water and told her to make a pinched face, again devoid of any emotion. Actually, the performances of all the children were all weak and annoying. They did a horrible job in casting these children. I haven't seen child acting this empty since Star Wars Episode One.
The pacing of the movie was horrible. There was too much time spent on small pointless scenes. It then moved on to seemingly large leaps in story line. I guess there was an assumption that all viewing this movie had read the book. But, I feel this created that atmosphere others have complained about. This movie is both too slow and too fast.
I was never able to identify with any character in this movie due to the weakness of any development in both character and story. So, I just didn't care.
The only thing interesting in this movie was Tilda Switon's hair.