Reviews

This is a story of a man, with a daughter, that decides to take to the woods to flee from his troubles and woes. It is very understated, and character performances are great. Ben Foster does the part he has done many times before, of a conflicted perhaps borderline insane man and his practice shows. And should Thomasin McKenzie prove to be able to do any other part (any!) this might be the breakout performance of the year. Leave no trace revolves heavily around the two main characters, the father and the daughter. He clearly suffers from some sort of trauma from his time in the service, and she follows him, understanding his plight. The movie explains very little, hints some things, and focuses heavily on the characters. I think as a understated movie it holds up decently, and it could have been a great one. But it fails to reward the viewers patience fully, as the third act dissapoints. The narrative way leads you a long way, and just as you accustom yourself to the way this movie tells the story, it ends. If you liked Winters Bone, this movie is probably for you. A movie leaving you wanting is never a waste of time.

Stellar performances, 9/10 script (there is a little bit lacking in the ending), and an overall likability to all the characters. For the first time in a long time I felt like I needed to post a review, because it felt like my view wasn't represented. If you liked Carnage, this is for you: This is a tightly wound, small play, made for screen. The bonus of having close-ups and a definitive, select final cut, made this a real treat.

Being a fan of good documentaries, I jumped at a chance of seeing Google Me, and the idea is sound. The lead character googles himself, and then travels and meets with all the persons that share his name. The main Jim is however not a great persona to front such a search. When you've seen a couple of good, character delving movies (King of Kong, Maradona by Kusturic, Touching the void aso..) this.... lets say fails to live up to the mark.

The Jims visited are diverse and there are a lot of touching points that would be interesting to talk about, but this movie fails "dive in", a traffic-planner in Scottland is rushed past to make fun of haggis, and this is repeated in most cases. Until we get to the last Jim, which is the creator (!) and I don't know in minutes but it feels like the longest and the only one taken seriously. The lasting impression is that the movie and other Jims are an excuse to talk about Jim.

This movie is not for you, it's for Jim.

I've seen a lot of love-movies. Most of them follow the exact same pattern, inherit with the category. Don't get me wrong, this one does too. But, it gets across that with a insightful script. The set-up is as follows: Two women, living together, decides they need to get laid and go to a bar frequented by male prostitutes. Two construction workers planning to drink some free drinks and skipping the tab are there, they are picked up and love-story follows. And had it been most movies it would've ended there, and a rating around 5 would be fair. But the script opens up to a wide variety of actual situations and problems relationships run into, with twists of course, but this story keeps trying to portray real relationships and succeeds for the most part in doing so. It has a witty and smart dialog, unexpected turns and overall quality that gets me thinking and recognizing situations. The characters start out as the typical placeholders in romantic films, but end up growing on you and evolving beyond the type and into real, very likable but flawed people. If I'd compare it to other movies I'd say it's a cross between Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and Closer.