One of the most interesting, yet insane, dystopian-like films that takes the high-concept art film form to mainstream audiences. Giving us something that I believe the masses will chalk up to a garage. Leaving the theater irritated, confused, and feeling underwhelmed and bamboozled.
The film cast, two actors who have had their fair share of blockbuster success. Both having mainstream tentpole franchises. So if they’re teaming up for a drama. It must be a classic Hollywood tale.
No. Not even close. The film opens with a deliberate, unconventional 1.33:1 aspect ratio, which is also known as 4:3. This ratio was a deliberate choice by the filmmakers to make the audience feel “boxed in” and to create a sense of emotional confinement.
Not to mention, this is not the only time director Lynne Ramsay made a deliberate decision to go against the grain of traditional filmmaking. Instead of telling a coherent narrative and using standard techniques to tell the story.
From the opening scene, with the overly sexual, unusual mating scene, accompanied by a heavy metal, rock-style score. That cuts to the next scene with a bang. You know you’re in for something different. You’re just not sure what that is exactly.
Even after seeing the film, I am not a hundred percent sure of all what the film was trying to convey or say. However, after my first viewing, there were a few subject matters that I not only understood but really related to.
Being a new parent. Coming off the high of that liberation of it being just you and your partner and then a third, tiny human comes into play. One that not only depends on you completely for survival but also takes a huge part of your love and devotion.
The film plays on that angle very well and very deeply. The hardships of first-time parenting. More so though, on postpartum depression that many women go through after giving birth.
Something that I can’t personally relate to, for I never actually birthed a child, only fathered them. But being married to the mother of my children, I have seen firsthand the toll that the birthing process has, and with having gone through that with her, not only twice , but twice in the past two years.
I feel like I had a better understanding of the film, the characters, and what they were going through, on some level. Something that I would have shrugged off and thought to be over the top. Pretentious, rather bland, and unrealistically played up, in order to save a story that has no real bone structure.
It’s one of those times that I feel like younger audiences will not understand or appreciate the film for what it truly offers. It’s a film in which age and life really play into the experience. Even if the experience isn’t anywhere near as extreme or intense.
Of course, there is so much more to the film than just postpartum depression. There is also the added physiological effect of moving into a secluded house in the middle of nowhere . Going from big city life, surrounded by people and endless life. To being stuck alone in the middle of nowhere. Not to mention the added factor of relationship struggle and the enviable change a baby takes on the relationship. The lack of love, lust, sex, and connection.
The characters are anything but what you would expect from two parents to be. Their overall character traits are messy, unpredictable, strange, and very much childish in the sense of being quote-on-quote ready. They’re anything but your typical young couple starting a family.
We have these characters without any real backstory. Other than a mere few sentences that make us aware of the fact that he’s an inspiring drummer and she’s an inspiring writer. Giving us the insight that they are both unemployed, not to mention the fact that the house in which they are living is a rundown house that was left to them from his uncle who passed.
The use of the score, cinematography, and overall color grading really adds to the unsettling and at times confusing sense of being. Allow us to know that the story itself isn’t being told from a reliable narrative. That some things are not actually what they seem. Not completely.
Overall, the film is completely erratic, telling the viewer only what can be seen as an once coherent story twisted and distorted through a lens of hyper realism, drenched in emotion, despair, toppled with mental health issues.
Jennifer Lawrence gives one of the best, most raw performances of her career, and without question one of the best of the year. Robert Patterson holds his own in this film. Yet never really has the opportunity to shine as brightly, given the way the character was written.
Overall Rating: 4/5 Stars.