Very disappointing

Rating: 3/10 (27 December 2014)

I am truly sorry to have to say this but I have come to realize that this film has actually been treated very KINDLY by the critics... and NOT harshly as many fans (including myself had hoped). The film is very conventional and though that is not necessarily a bad thing, it should at least then follow the conventional rules; beginning, middle, end; tension, climax, resolution. Have an arc, which is a curved line and not a flat one... running from beginning to end which a film that just shows unrelenting episodes of misery, is. Now I understand what the critics were getting on about with Angie not talking or showing Louis' struggle with his inner demons and or how he dealt with them after the war. She did have that option. Lauren Hildebrand's book was very large and very comprehensive. In other words Angie had a wealth of material from which to make her choices from.. The choices she made here were unfortunate and call into question her artistic eye, as painful as that is for me to admit. She seems to be too much about the darkness to the point of being fetishistic about it. And now... I wished this film wasn't doing well. Now.... I wished this film had been shown in just a few theaters, failed and then silently faded from everyone's memory. Why? Because I fear its success (so far anyway) is going draw more and more focus and derision on both it and Angie, (she get's way too much of that already) and I can't say it won't be deserved. I could go on about other things but it would be just piling on. The ONLY positive thing I can say about this film and Angie is that she has essentially made Jack O'Connell into a star. I can only hope that since her next film is small and very different the experience will be a much happier one for me. But I will go into it with my guard up...