I adore Melanie Lynskey as an actress and do believe she was on-point with her performance here, but there's only so much an actor can do with such a clichéd story and script.
Playing a recent divorcée, Lynskey plays the all-too-familiar role of the wallflower with no direction, whose complete and utter lack of motivation and sense of self is rescued by meaningless sex with someone she knows will never give her a lasting relationship. It's self- deluded escapism brought upon by a weak resolve and character that ultimately leads her nowhere. At some point she looks at the shallow experience as finding love once again, but the teenager she is sleeping with merely craves the sex and casual pillow talk, never really getting to the meat of who she is as a person.
There is a scene where the mother seems unusually cruel and insulting, but thinking about what she said, I agree with her: our protagonist sits around doing nothing but being a leech on her family, capturing the attention of her father at every moment with her selfish behavior. At the end of the movie, she decides to spite her father by running off with her mother, a whole other psychology lesson for another day.
I am sure audiences will relate with this: our society isolates us and fosters a lot of depression, and sex is now the most advertised escapism from the pains of life, so why not find some solace in a film that promises us casual sex will lead us to being free from our binds?
Playing a recent divorcée, Lynskey plays the all-too-familiar role of the wallflower with no direction, whose complete and utter lack of motivation and sense of self is rescued by meaningless sex with someone she knows will never give her a lasting relationship. It's self- deluded escapism brought upon by a weak resolve and character that ultimately leads her nowhere. At some point she looks at the shallow experience as finding love once again, but the teenager she is sleeping with merely craves the sex and casual pillow talk, never really getting to the meat of who she is as a person.
There is a scene where the mother seems unusually cruel and insulting, but thinking about what she said, I agree with her: our protagonist sits around doing nothing but being a leech on her family, capturing the attention of her father at every moment with her selfish behavior. At the end of the movie, she decides to spite her father by running off with her mother, a whole other psychology lesson for another day.
I am sure audiences will relate with this: our society isolates us and fosters a lot of depression, and sex is now the most advertised escapism from the pains of life, so why not find some solace in a film that promises us casual sex will lead us to being free from our binds?