Unworthy of Merit

Rating: 1/10 (12 February 2018)

It has been a very long time since I have been physically ill at the end of a film - but that is precisely how I felt at the end of this one. How far have we come that the most promising Oscar nomination for the year has a hero whose script bleeps like a chicken sitting on an egg? The camera adds fifteen pounds to a human figure. Despite that the heroine looks anorectic and in need of medical oversight.
The 1950s depiction here has the unveiled focus on bigotry, power imbalance between the sexes, narcissistic overplay by both military and security services, homophobia, racial injustice, and oppression of women in marriage, in racial marriage, and in the workforce. About the only area neglected was the religious oppression of the period, surprisingly enough. The script nearly verges on satire with its lack of balance for what was of value during this period, but instead skewers it for its failings. The characters, as a result are one dimensional and stereotypical - which of course was the point.
There is a curious lack of power in all the figures in this film, from the security manager who is hit at both ends from his marriage or supervisors, to the gay unemployed, the research station support staff, the snack bar clerk, underworld figures, and the military oversight. The powerlessness is exaggerated and caricatured. Because the setting focuses on this lack of power and its consequent emptiness, the focus moves directly to the only sympathetic place the viewer can find of interest - which lies in the compassion between colleagues, neighbours, and for that of an abused incarcerated lab creature.
Given those elements in place, the rest of the film moves into the realm not only of the fanciful, but unbelievable, if absurd, and plays on the western obsession with the idea of love as romance on the most basic if basal elements of need on the physical an emotive plane. It is developed to contrast with what the only offered comparison in the film, which of course is the emptiness of the 1950s caricature of a marriage.
Oh please. And for this an Oscar nomination? Really? Where are we inspired? Where is the acting inspired? What is worthy in this film? Awards are given to what is outstanding. This film is anything but that. Shame on the American industry for elevating this. It is most unworthy.