This dreary movie has some good things going for it on paper, but they're all wasted on a lugubrious directing style that recreates the feeling of dozing on a hot summer day, not because you're tired but because it's too hot to do anything else.
Casey Affleck is a young man who goes to jail for armed robbery. Rooney Mara is the young woman he leaves behind to care for his child. She was involved in the robbery too, and even shoots one of the cops who's pinning them down in a deserted house, but Affleck takes the rap for her. He gets out of jail and wants to come to her even though lots of people are telling him to stay away, some for his own good, some for her's. Meanwhile, she's flirting with the cop who she shot (Ben Foster), though he doesn't know that she's the one who wounded him.
The plot summary makes this film sound like it would be full of dramatic tension but it's not. The film is so languid that nothing that happens in it seems to matter much, not to the characters in it and certainly not to the audience. We know that Mara and Affleck have some profound deep love for one another, not because it's shown to us on screen but because we're told so. They have little to zero chemistry, and Affleck is so unlikable in his taciturn, mumbly way that you don't want to see him end up with Mara anyway. I think I might be a little bit in love with Rooney Mara though, and her presence alone was almost (but not quite) enough to keep me interested.
Don't watch this at the end of a long hard day because you will be instantly asleep. Unless that's your goal, in which case pop it in and enjoy.
Grade: C-
Casey Affleck is a young man who goes to jail for armed robbery. Rooney Mara is the young woman he leaves behind to care for his child. She was involved in the robbery too, and even shoots one of the cops who's pinning them down in a deserted house, but Affleck takes the rap for her. He gets out of jail and wants to come to her even though lots of people are telling him to stay away, some for his own good, some for her's. Meanwhile, she's flirting with the cop who she shot (Ben Foster), though he doesn't know that she's the one who wounded him.
The plot summary makes this film sound like it would be full of dramatic tension but it's not. The film is so languid that nothing that happens in it seems to matter much, not to the characters in it and certainly not to the audience. We know that Mara and Affleck have some profound deep love for one another, not because it's shown to us on screen but because we're told so. They have little to zero chemistry, and Affleck is so unlikable in his taciturn, mumbly way that you don't want to see him end up with Mara anyway. I think I might be a little bit in love with Rooney Mara though, and her presence alone was almost (but not quite) enough to keep me interested.
Don't watch this at the end of a long hard day because you will be instantly asleep. Unless that's your goal, in which case pop it in and enjoy.
Grade: C-