Daniel Radcliffe, Juno Temple, Max Minghella
Film Filter: On Ig Perrish's girlfriend's unexpected murder has the whole town believing that he is culpable of the crime, with little to no one believing he is innocent. Despite his best verbal and legal attempts to disprove the town's belief, Ig starts to grow two very obvious horns from his temple, forcing people to question whether or not he is the devil himself.
Things to note: Graphic sexual scenes, completely unique plot, story lines weaved together seamlessly, good plot pacing, a few random scenes that disrupt the main point of the story, rape scene, some moments of extreme fantasy, strong delivery by most of the cast.
You'll like this movie if you enjoy:
Graphic fantasy thrillers, like Legion or Devil's Advocate
WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD!
As an avid Harry Potter fan, I am definitely intrigued by Radcliffe's post HP work, and I have to say I have yet to be disappointed. I was eager to see this film, as I love the deliberately vague description and had high hopes for it.
Pros: Let me just start by saying that Radcliffe has the Midas Touch for acting right now. This may not have been a blockbuster success in theaters, as it was only available for a short time after grossing a fraction of the presumed estimate, but it's undeniable that Radcliffe delivers an amazing performance. He is able to portray a multi-dimensional character who is struggling to remain good when evil prevails all around him. He also does a great job in his delivery of lines and scenes of varying emotions, while still staying true to the characterization he has thus developed. I was very impressed.
On the same note, there were other cast members who delivered quite well, too. The actress playing Merrin, despite not having as much on screen time as a lot of the characters, had a demanding job as she was forced to project an obvious interpretation of her character, while also alluding to another alternate interpretation, which she did successfully. The other male lead character, Lee, also had character development changes, and did a decent job with those, although I give the upper hand to the afore mentioned duo. While we're at it, whoever cast the young adolescents for the flashback scenes did a SUPERB job. All the young 'uns looked like little carbon copies of the older versions of themselves, and I was really impressed with that.
There was a fair amount of comedy in this film, more so in the beginning to middle, not so much the end. This was nice because it helped the film flow in different directions at times, and had there been no inclusion of it, the film would have felt much too dark, and it felt dark enough as it was for me to be more than satisfied.
While some critics complain that the flashbacks detracted from the pacing of the movie, I found them incredibly relevant and interesting. If you've followed enough of my posts, I hate it when too much interesting information is divulged too soon. A lot of films could learn a thing or two by watching this one on how a good, interesting story is developed. Instead of keeping everything in present day, the use of flashbacks allowed us to better understand character interactions at their beginnings and roots, and also allowed the present day plot to lie dormant for awhile. This was a much better alternative, in my opinion, than giving out all the goods of the story too soon, or letting the anxiety of not knowing the goods of the story while we sit and dawdle in present day time get tedious to watch. Again, I found the flashbacks to be a necessary and unique part of the story and a lot of character development.
Symbolism. This happened a lot throughout the film, and while some of it was more overt, a lot of it was well hidden, if you knew what to look for. It did get a little bit over the top towards the end, which made it less like an easter egg for the viewer, and more like a "Hey, look what we're doing here!" but on the whole it was well executed. Some cool things with camera angles and transitions were also noted.
The ending was very well done and almost could cover up the fact that a lot of the ending was outlandish and kind of bogus.
Cons- I have to admit that I have not read the book, but from what I have found it seems that director Aja kept Hill's original manuscript as honest as a film adaptation could be, so I respect that. I also can't argue against the believability of a film that is clearly meant to be a fantasy thriller with some biblical references. It doesn't mean that I have to love it, though.
One of my issues with the film is that so much of it felt so real and believable, that I just couldn't get behind some of the more extreme fantasy ideas. I actually loved the idea of the horns, and the confession aspect. It was a brilliant way to both move the plot forward and create some interesting contrary feelings toward the lead character. What I didn't like was the lack of believability of the evolution of Ig Perrish's demonic form, and how a magical cross necklace could undo extreme physical ailments, like your flesh burning off, for one. It just took what I felt the actors did so hard to create, which was a believable story, and undermined it all by being way too fantastical. Again, if that's the way the story goes, I can't change it, but I don't like what it did to what was already established.
There was a lot of unnecessary sex in this film. A lot of it was done in humor, and some of it had its place in the film, but a lot of it was unnecessary. I wasn't a huge fan of the fact that there was (albeit visually mild) a rape scene in the film, but it did serve the purpose of enforcing the heinous nature of the crime, and I also didn't really know that the character was raped until that scene happened as a flashback later. It was probably a result of me not paying attention that I missed it toward the beginning, but I wasn't aware that was a part of the way Merrin had died. It was a little unsettling.
Wrap up- This film was so incredibly unique, and very interesting to watch. It does a great job of captivating you and holding you to the very end, and for me it didn't feel like a long dragged out 2 hour film, but one that had a clear ending that tied all the ends together and had a good pace. There were some things that I wasn't a huge fan of in the film, but in the end it didn't distract me from really enjoying it. Had there not been an amazing performance by Radcliffe, or the flashbacks and elements of humor, I don't think I could have enjoyed it.
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