wolkner

It's such a pity because in the first act it has everything: a cleverly paced and pointed dramaturgy, gorgous casting and acting, great cinematography and production, a natural feeling coming close to Ira Sach or Andrew Haigh. But soon after opening the christmas envelope, there's hardly any of its engagingness left.

It's not the dramatic turn expected by the title's "Grief", it's the masochism of sitting through the annoying lack of the "Good" in the ensuing cold-blooded emotional rampage. Quickly Mark, the main character of Emmy-winning actor-author-director Dan Levy, turns into a dispicable scemer, hurting his committed best friend, Himesh Patel's sweet Thomas, and being bested by their uncomitted third, Sophie, an unnervingly self-inflicting sufferer played by Ruth Negga.

The upper-middle-class setting in London and Paris makes the estranged and egocentric Millenials look good, of course, but its entitlement surmounts to nothing else but karaoke, ferris wheels and too much boring walk-and-talk, too much distance, too much disregard, too much narcissism, too little to care for.

Our watch group of four queer activists and former film festival team members were all disappointed, frustrated even, found the dialogues cringey, the story irratic, unengaging and boring, the characters Mark and Sophie unbearable.

Admitted, I like a lot of what Cameron made, but "Avatar 2" is form and surface over substance. He and his team have almost 200 minutes, and sure, we get quite a lot: National Geographic nature porn as well as fighting galore. The visuals of Pandora and the new tropical ocean site are really beautiful, of course. Another given is that humans exploit and kill this beautiful nature for profit, which is indeed heart-wrenching.

On the other hand, Cameron doesn't use the 3+ hours of runtime in a well-balanced way. So much time, but none spent on character development. Yeah, these are the kids of the great Jake Sully and Neytiri (and I really liked the gifts of Kiri), so we can infer the pressure and the danger, but we don't learn much about their personality-except for being rebellious, stubborn or whatever-to really care. And we only get banal truisms of what family life means. If only Cameron had given us more personal insights and a punch or fireweapon less ...

By the way, the computer animation looks pretty realistic, but I'm really not a fan of HFR (high-frequency rate) projections. And some of the camera effects, like small whip pans, didn't work well for me. I would have liked a smoother camera.

Romina D'ugo is a very charming leading actor and a great dancer, but we don't get to see her dancing that much unfortunately. The script/plot on the other hand is full of clichés and shorthands, it's really cringeworthy.

For whatever reason the (European/international?) version is trimmed by over 10 minutes and those "jump cuts" really make the film unenjoyable. Such a waste!

Tempted by a great cast to watch this, I only stayed till the end of the film because it was like watching a train wreck in slow motion, showing in slightly off costumes and much fuss about boringness. Alan Rickman's second film as an "auteur" (director, writer, actor) 27 years after his first feature feels rather failed - and tired. Good for him that the BBC produced this film and that he (or the producers) was able to cast such great actors. I kind of liked that they irreverently told a story of a woman in a men's world, but Rickman and his two co-authors didn't know how to use the potential of their anachronistic set-up. The only thing they could conceive of was a little machination and shy romance. Oh boy, are the dialogues bland, and the direction is uninspired, too. Sorry, Alan! Even Matthias Schoenaerts, who I admired so much in "Bullhead", was lacklustre. His character has few potentials, thus he has even fewer expressions than Tom Cruise in all of his filmography: one single sulking pout. The only salvation in this film was the spirited and warm Kate Winslet.

I don't know the novel, but from the hints of the film I could gather that the novel must have some deep appeal and intrigue. The film adaptation lacks any of that. The different layers of the story hardly make sense on their own, becoming only shorthands and clichees with little emotional impact. The episodes are longish and loose sight of the bigger picture. Production value and acting is good though, only the script lacks finesse.

At the centre of MATER's plot is the rape of a man by a lesbian couple wanting a baby desperately. How the filmmaker mixes lesbian family plans and male (heterosexual) rape is dangerously simplistic. Both topics are important to talk about, if handled seriously and/or compassionately, but director and writer Pablo D'Alo Abba doesn't care for real emotions - or the effects of his representation - at all. Instead he fills the space between conceptual plot points with boring shallowness, wasting a lot of potential and eventually aiming for a corny happy ending. Why did Abba choose a lesbian and not a heterosexual couple (the man could have been infertile) for his story? Maybe he had good reasons, but probably not. The consequence of Abba's choice is that (once again) lesbians are being portrayed as psychologically damaged (egotistically committing rape without any sympathy or remorse during or after). Neither does Abba comprehend the emotional impact of rape, so he sends his male protagonist (a ne'er-do-well) on a quest of seeking co-parenthood with his rapists to escape his dominant mother. Really? In my humble opinion as a queer festival director, this film is doing a huge disservice to the discussion of any of its topics.