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Sharonov
Reviews
Top of the Lake (2013)
Too many inconsistencies
SPOILER ALERT
Robin the detective (Elizabeth Moss) is visiting her dying mother in New Zealand when a 12 year old child turns up pregnant, then disappears. Since abuse cases are her specialty, she is assigned the case. During this 7 season crime drama, we learn about her past, her mother's past, and the various criminal activities that are ongoing in the town of Top of the Lake. Though I was engaged enough to stay through all 7 episodes, several elements of the storyline bothered me.
1. The pacing at times was so slow that I had to force myself not to tune out. Then, the entire case and all mysteries were solved in the last 10-15 minutes of the final episode. Suddenly the show speeded up and glossed over the entire climax, so that I was left scratching my head when the credits rolled. Huh? What just happened and why?
2. The main character, Robin, was gang raped in the town when she was 15 and forced by her mother to bear the resulting baby, which she gave up for adoption. Yet she seems to have no problems whatsoever in having a healthy sex life. Since a large part of the story deals with women's issues, this seemed to be a pretty glaring omission.
3. In the last episode, which probably should have been two episodes, Robin finds out the identity of her "real" father, who also happens to be the father of her boyfriend. Then dna results come in which supposedly indicate that the boyfriend's mother must have screwed around, since he has a different father. So convenient. The DNA results also indicate that Tui was impregnated by her father. All this is delivered by the villain, so how much is true? Never explained.
Robin indicates that Tui is having nightmares. In the hastily contrived climax, she eagerly goes with her friends on an outing, which ends up to be a drugged orgy at the villain's house where the young friends are being drugged and used by pedophiles. So-who was really the father of her baby? HER father, or a pedophile? Wouldn't her nightmares have given her a clue not to go so eagerly, even if she wanted to get away from the demands of motherhood? What is the significance of "No-One?" Also, these kids may have been drugged, but sexual activity produces bodily sensations that don't go away when the drugs wear off. So why aren't the kids more wary?
Too much is glossed over in the drive to create mood. OK, so this is a remote and beautiful place where people are screwed up. I get it. Now plug up the holes in the story, please.
Under the Skin (2013)
Not the Book
About 5 years ago I read the book by Michael Faber. In the book, a strange looking woman with big boobs picks up Scottish hitchhikers, ascertains if they're alone in the world; if they are, she takes them to a secret place where they are anesthetized, then castrated and de- tongued. They are then fattened to be used for food in the place she comes from, an unnamed planet. She has had her face altered to look human by removing her snout. She feels very ugly because of this. At one point a male she was in love with comes to visit the secret place and she feels terrible because of her "deformity", realizing that now he will never love her. At one point in the book she is almost raped by a very crude man, and blinds him with her nails.
The poor men being fattened for food are depicted as being very pathetic, and I originally thought it was a protest against the way we treat factory farm animals. Michael Faber denied this, and maybe that's why he hasn't protested this very vague use of his work. And, maybe he's just hungry.
This movie is so far from the book it's ridiculous, but that would have been OK if it weren't so boring. Some of the special effects and music were just weird enough to make what happens almost believable. Had it been shortened; had it been a little more obvious why the men were being caught and imprisoned in the jello stuff, I think I would have enjoyed it more. As the previous reviewer pointed out, the scenes were just too long.