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Post by pankakesnotstellar on Oct 1, 2017 13:04:37 GMT
Finally saw it! I'm glad I stuck with it, my impulse in the first 15 minutes was to switch it off... Benedict is incredible! What the guy can do with the material given to him is unreal!
I'm afraid this is another piece of work not matching to his talent, unnecessarily nonlinear and too "wannabe smth"...
I am always blown away by his talent and this is another demonstration of it...with other editing, and directing it could have been a true piece of drama, as it is, only Benedict's talent elevates it to more than 'a misguided attempt' - all this imo of course- 🙂
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Post by sgev1977 on Oct 1, 2017 13:51:44 GMT
I’m glad it’s something daring, risky and different (esp. for prime mainstream TV). It never would be for everyone and I’m sure Sunny March knew it. He clearly is searching for new challenges and I think it makes it different to anything he had did for Hollywood companies in recent times.
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Post by pankakesnotstellar on Oct 1, 2017 15:32:57 GMT
I’m glad it’s something daring, risky and different (esp. for prime mainstream TV). It never would be for everyone and I’m sure Sunny March knew it. He clearly is searching for new challenges and I think it makes it different to anything he had did for Hollywood companies in recent times. I agree sgev, it's quite different from his previous roles and it's so good to see him as a father figure facing a tragedy. He's wonderful, but the direction and the editing of the film is the weak point imo.... Nothing flows. A few good, small and great scenes that go nowhere... After the discovery that Kate is missing(which gets the story going) and a few panicked yells, nothing... Telling Julie he's doesn't have Kate, she starts to cry and then nothing... The dinner in the restaurant with the friends, a very interesting show of characters that seems so disconnected from everything... Just a few examples that for me devalued the direction and the editing... Script was OK but not smth spectacular and Julie was strangely not very much "in" the story, she was a spectator and sometimes a point of reference for him and nothing else... I understand the British understatement, but that was character underdevelopment actually... I find I understood better his suicidal friend than his wife in their respective tragedies... As a character and actor, Kelly was much more interesting in Gosford Park - now that is a film I really really like... |
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Post by sgev1977 on Oct 1, 2017 17:52:14 GMT
I kind of liked they stopped before the drama become too much. It felt slightly less morbid than other dramas about awful incidents: by now you now what will happen next so we won’t show you!. Something like that.
I also loved the editing in the first scene with the music then stop and real life sounds then music again cut real sounds. Then BC looking the police car approaching cut he is suddenly inside of the police car. It briefly seems he is watching himself which kind of suggest one very common trauma reaction: feeling you are not yourself but a neutral spectator watching yourself. There was a sense of very realist style mixed with more conventional drama that IMHO helped to the nature of the story, esp. in the adaptation in which the pseudoscience became more something supernatural which again possible just suggest the magical thinking of those involve in the tragedy.
About Julie character, you are right but she is even worse in the book. The scriptwriter actually worried to explained her in a much satisfactory way. The book is completely about the experiences of the father. She is just the wife who take weird decisions. That’s not saying the adaptation is more feminist, I agreed with that review that says the scientific role was reduced to just a motherly wife. At the same time I understand they had to edit things but it’s a shame that it was her.
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Post by mllemass on Oct 1, 2017 20:24:00 GMT
The story takes place now, though. Kate going missing and the immediate panic that followed were in the past, and come back to Stephen in flashes. I thought the disconnect between that panic and the calm dinner with his friends was deliberate. How can he sit there having dinner when his little girl is missing?? But two years have gone by, and this is how he's coping.
There were angry people on Twitter wondering why they hadn't checked the CCTV at the supermarket, so they obviously thought that no investigation had taken place just because we didn't see it happen.
I like the way they filmed it, and I really like that they gave me something to think about as I watched it and even after it was over.
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Post by coolclearwaters on Oct 1, 2017 20:40:05 GMT
In the book, her absence is a character. When she is there, it is almost exclusively to have sex with Stephen and have a baby. I’m not saying this is sexist, it’s just that she leaves, you know she’s grieving, but what has become of her is a mystery. She has almost vanished like the little girl.
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Post by sgev1977 on Oct 1, 2017 21:09:04 GMT
She is much more present in the series.
I’m not saying the book is sexist but the book is completely about the male character. She, like a lot of female characters written by men, is an enigma. Her decisions are more clear in the movie: she is paralyzed by grief as in the book but it’s clearly explained she abandoned the house because she can’t avoid to blame her husband for the disappearance even when she clearly loves him. So it’s suggested she can’t stand him anymore but also don’t want to harm him so she knows she needs time alone. I think that’s not clearly explained in the book. Also the dialogue about the private detective suggests she thinks there are people abusing of Stephen’s obsession with find the girl. There are also a scene with a third character in which it’s mentioned they were on TV a lot (the latter scene in the school confirms their case it’s of public knowledge) and were blamed by random people on social media. That modernized the adaptation but also briefly shows how the immediate search was by both parents. In the book it seems she was always passive. Here it’s suggested she participated but then was disappointed by the results so she retires in an effort to rebuild herself.
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Post by queenzod on Oct 1, 2017 22:44:39 GMT
I think her "absence" highlighted the sense of disconnection and even disassociation that Stephen experiences. In a way, it's his own version of PTSD. Most people go around the world with a sense of false security. When that security is breached, in war, violence or other extreme and traumatic experiences, you're thrown out of that bubble of security and are wandering in an entirely different arena, psychologically. It's extremely difficult (if not impossible) to return to your previous view of life. You feel disconnected from other people, and this, I think, is what happened to Stephen and Julie.
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Post by ladyemma91 on Oct 3, 2017 2:45:59 GMT
I've annoyed some people on twitter already but since there are some not so flattering remarks here I wanted to get my thoughts out without annoying people (I hope).
Went in ready to love this and even though I had been given a rundown of the story and I thought it sounded weird and disconnected, I thought they would make it work. To me they didn't. No explaining of why people did certain things is gonna change the fact that I was utterly bored. And then that made me feel bad because what am I a toddler? I need bright colors an a loud music to be entertained? Oh I can't help how I felt.
I didn't find any motivation to want to keep watching. Disliked all the scenes with Charles, and I scoffed at the symbolism (it's been kinda frustrating having people think if they just explained that he was also a "child lost in time" I will suddenly like that storyline). Everytime they showed the committee I wondered why we were being shown this. The whole concept of Time not being linear being a comfort to grieving parents was interesting but they didn't really go into it enough and at the same time I hated how the grandma just said the whole point of the pub scene and that was it. And the ending felt weird and I was left resenting Julie for not telling Stephen about the pregnancy.
Don't wanna be completely negative--Benedict and Kelly did have chemistry, and the whole concept and two people being broken apart purely because of a tragedy was kinda interesting to see. And of course Benedict looked beautiful.
Overall, a huge disappointment for me and it left me longing for Benedict to be in your standard thriller or family drama. Something not risky, something I could just enjoy where he plays an Everyman. Oh well, hopefully I'll get it eventually.
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Post by sgev1977 on Oct 3, 2017 3:24:22 GMT
Charles is definitely not “a child lost in time”! In the book is much more clear that his behavior is pure fetishism. The photographs weren’t about him playing in the woods but him dressing as a little kid in company of prostitutes. Probably people would be more shocked with that (pure Ian McEwan!) but I would had liked they didn’t softened the situation. I think the speech in his funeral didn’t make sense at all because it wasn’t about the handbook at all but about his deteriorating mental state and perversions. He is the opposite of Stephen who desires to regain his role as an adult male and father after he felt he failed as both when he lost his daughter.
I also didn’t liked the scene with te grandmother explaining the pub scene. It was corny when the rest of the movie wasn’t. I think it was the scene I really hated.
In general, I liked it. It wasn’t perfect but IMO it was a good adaptation of a very complex book. They didn’t went for the literal which it’s always good. I also understand why some people didn’t like it. It’s something different, esp. for TV, and yes, risky.
Have you read the Patrick Melrose books? They are much less symbolic but they should also be very difficult to adapt with probably much more sordid theme that this. It seems Sunny March likes difficult stuff! I think How to Stop Time sounds much more straightforward and “normal”. I haven’t read that book, tho.
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