5/10

Rating: 5/10 (21 February 2016)

After "The King's Speech" and the perfect musical adaptation of "Les Miserables", this is a tremendous step down for Tom Hooper. A disappointment from almost every point of view and worst of all, a definition of Oscar Bait film, which hurts even more coming from a director whose movies in the past strayed away from that stereotype.
What the film can count on is of course Desplat's music which rarely ever fails to elevate a film, no matter the quality, Alicia Vikander's charisma and splendid screen presence and an unbelievable production design, that is often what repeatedly saves scenes from being cringe-worthy. It is often what is telling the story the most and without such an excellence in this department I am sure I would have got bored fifteen minutes into the film. But, also thanks to Tom Hooper's distinctive and beautiful visual style, I hardly ever got even annoyed by the film because of such a beautiful scenery.
For the rest the film fails to explore or be insightful on even the most basic of its themes, it doesn't raise any thoughts or ideas, it stays on a superficial note for the whole duration and hardly managed to make me feel emotion. That is due both to the fact that the filmmakers probably forgot the meaning of understated or subtle and through at you an overwhelming quantity of acting and melodrama of which I had had enough by the first act. This screenplay does not set up its characters or story coherently, it is all over the place and doesn't give any type of depth to motivations or back story. Almost everything, right from the very beginning, is thrown at your face, spoon fed to you repeatedly and it makes for a dull experience, were the audience member is never given the chance to be engaged.
Look, I loved Eddie Redmayne before it was cool to love him. His work in Les Miserables is indicative of his talent, but it's the second year in a row in which he turns out a performance that has nothing to do with what I consider to be true acting. He is acting so much it is unwatchable at times, he does not even come close to disappearing from screen and I don't care whatever he went through, that's none of my business and nor should be anyone's. DiCaprio, Redmayne, Day-Lewis, I don't fuc**ing care what the fu*k you went through to give your performance when the result on screen is so unauthentic. Yes I went there, even with Day-Lewis. It's just not the type of acting that I enjoy and it's actually the kind that I deeply hate. I want to see a character on screen, as Ian McKellen says: both the acting and the actor have to disappear from screen and this is the total opposite. All I see is an actor acting and it takes away every possible, genuine emotion the film could raise.
I would not suggest to check this one out, I certainly won't go near it anytime soon. It was a dull and disappointing experience and even more so because of all the talent involved.