Be warned that this movie is nothing like the trailer (not a rare story, yet still). The trailer banks on the promise with which the movie starts, but this promise is completely squandered. If it hadn't left me feeling that so much was wasted (including my expectations and time) then I would score it a little higher, but it is a let-down.
I got geared up for a satisfying battle of the wills with strong sexual tension and witty comedy - uh, no. All the hopes you might have for this, entwined with the interesting topics of spiritual belief, family-love, -expectations and -narrowness, and cult deprogramming will be lost quickly. The characters RUSH into sex, and any real interesting issues are suddenly discarded. It just becomes a drawn out mess with 2 lost people clawing at each other and calling each other names. An older man becoming obsessed with a nubile young woman (for some reason she spends an awful lot of time hanging around in a bra) who taunts him with it. Where is his strength? We are supposed to believe that he has worked with 189 other vulnerable young people and his experience leads him to this pathetic breakdown of trust and decency so quickly? And what about the devotion she had for her belief? Gone. This could all be the source of a good dark film, if it was handled and explored well, but it isn't here, and this film doesn't make a good transition to it as a subject. It just left me feeling a bit lost and abused, having watched people being so rotten to one another to no good end (the wrap-up "we're OK now, and better for the experience" ending is just bogus). I got the sense that the filmmakers ran out of steam on this - that there were supposed to be many levels at work, but they just couldn't "keep it up." I saw this with two friends and we talked about it for a while afterwards, mainly because we were trying to salvage the unfulfilled promise of interesting topics opened in the beginning of the film. It left us feeling stranded, needing to talk about it in order to follow through on what the film didn't deliver. We also needed to just get the bad taste of the film out of our mouths.
I see from other viewer comments that people argue that it raises many issues - it does, but that doesn't make it a good film. It opens too many doors and then let's all the good stuff fly away. It's a shame, because the first part really seems to be the opening to a view of cult deprogramming, with Ruth's zany family as a background (that bunch of characters is wasted, which is too bad), and then it suddenly becomes about sex, desperation and nastiness, nothing clever. And the sex isn't even sexy - it's pathetic, desperate sex. Ick. Perhaps this movie is worth seeing, for the things that are brought up - but be aware that it doesn't come near to completing the journey with any of them, and that it is not as clever and funny as the trailer and the beginning would lead you to believe. Be prepared for the characters to fall apart, and to sit through a long period of people being just being mean and debased, until you just don't care about them at all anymore. All too bad - some very talented people were involved in this.
I got geared up for a satisfying battle of the wills with strong sexual tension and witty comedy - uh, no. All the hopes you might have for this, entwined with the interesting topics of spiritual belief, family-love, -expectations and -narrowness, and cult deprogramming will be lost quickly. The characters RUSH into sex, and any real interesting issues are suddenly discarded. It just becomes a drawn out mess with 2 lost people clawing at each other and calling each other names. An older man becoming obsessed with a nubile young woman (for some reason she spends an awful lot of time hanging around in a bra) who taunts him with it. Where is his strength? We are supposed to believe that he has worked with 189 other vulnerable young people and his experience leads him to this pathetic breakdown of trust and decency so quickly? And what about the devotion she had for her belief? Gone. This could all be the source of a good dark film, if it was handled and explored well, but it isn't here, and this film doesn't make a good transition to it as a subject. It just left me feeling a bit lost and abused, having watched people being so rotten to one another to no good end (the wrap-up "we're OK now, and better for the experience" ending is just bogus). I got the sense that the filmmakers ran out of steam on this - that there were supposed to be many levels at work, but they just couldn't "keep it up." I saw this with two friends and we talked about it for a while afterwards, mainly because we were trying to salvage the unfulfilled promise of interesting topics opened in the beginning of the film. It left us feeling stranded, needing to talk about it in order to follow through on what the film didn't deliver. We also needed to just get the bad taste of the film out of our mouths.
I see from other viewer comments that people argue that it raises many issues - it does, but that doesn't make it a good film. It opens too many doors and then let's all the good stuff fly away. It's a shame, because the first part really seems to be the opening to a view of cult deprogramming, with Ruth's zany family as a background (that bunch of characters is wasted, which is too bad), and then it suddenly becomes about sex, desperation and nastiness, nothing clever. And the sex isn't even sexy - it's pathetic, desperate sex. Ick. Perhaps this movie is worth seeing, for the things that are brought up - but be aware that it doesn't come near to completing the journey with any of them, and that it is not as clever and funny as the trailer and the beginning would lead you to believe. Be prepared for the characters to fall apart, and to sit through a long period of people being just being mean and debased, until you just don't care about them at all anymore. All too bad - some very talented people were involved in this.