Surprisingly good and quite intelligent

Rating: 8/10 (2 November 2019)

I liked this movie a lot. Watched it to see how Timothee had done and I ended being quite surprised. It's technically a war movie, but war is of little importance in it, it was only the necessary end that the plot was asking for. But the movie is much more than that: it's about what it means to become a man, to "come of age" in its literal sense, to be free, to not let yourself be carried from life any longer and truly start to make decisions, to be conscious (of yourself and of life, of finitude, mortality). It's a "slow" movie compared to what we usually have today, but it had to be to say something besides thrilling and drama and plot twists. The director did very well, there's always present the detach of Hal from the others, his (supposed) coming of age, his detach from the life he led: above war and drama, that's what the director was going to: show him detached from the rest, from whatever is in front of him, and not left there lost in the middle of life, and he did that very well. Timothee's put a very good performance: he shows confusion, determination yet still grieve: a mix of expressions that do not fit a king but yet fit very well what he is in the movie.
His dialogue with Lily rose Depp is the moral of the story: after all, he never detached from his old life, he still wasn't free, he was still moved by grief, played by life. And only in the end does he show that he understood what is needed to become a man, to stop being young.
The script is quite good, never too clear, almost always just on point, saying what it needs to be said for the public to understand.
Congratulations Netflix for another good movie.