96% Rotten Tomatoes?! God, I wish. Look, you couldn't find a more passionate advocate for slice of life films about middle age dating with a female lead than me, but damn
1. If there is a romance, I have to feel, even briefly, that both people actually are into each other. This did not happen! I truly wish Brad Garrett had been cast in the Turturro role because his one scene with Moore demonstrated a world of connection missing from…
Finally, my first Lynne Ramsey film!
It's so refreshing to have a writer/director do away with exposition and most dialogue in favor of mood, tension, and letting a great actor fully inhabit a character. It is a crime agst humanity that Joaquin Phoenix didn't win an Oscar for this role; that he wasn't nominated is painful (same for Ethan Hawke). In any case, this film is all about being willing to not know, and oddly, I was excited by this. I don't need to understand every moment to know this is a great film.
This film is much like seeing an art masterpiece at a museum. I can recognize the amazing craft, the historical references, the surprising break from the known, the elegance and beauty in the work, and yet, if it doesn't engage my heart, leaves me impressed but ultimately cold.
Caveat: My mom was just 21 when she had me and 22 when she had my sister. She was a single parent for us from the time I was 3-14. She was on welfare until I was 7.
I say all this because this film wrecked me. It is so non-judgmental and allows reality to breathe all the while capturing childhood in all its gritty innocence. This is an America that I am acutely aware of and which is too…
