Reviews

You know when you watch a movie, and you wait for a character in the movie to say the title of the movie? Well, it unexpectedly happened here when Marilyn's agent said, "it's a stagy piece of crap". Also, when her makeup artist said, "stop screaming". Also, when the casting director said, "It's like watching a mental patient". Perfect descriptions for this one. Overdone, pointless, and schizophrenic like Marilyn and her mother combined. Blue eyes, brown eyes, black and white, color, real life, fantasy, just all over the place. All the men were monsters, yet the movie was too weird for me to care. De Armas played Marilyn throughout the whole movie and not Norma Jean at all. She also played unrealistically too vulnerable that I didn't know where she was going. The scene with JFK was so bad it was almost laughable. Hard pass. In fact, this was the straw that broke my Netflix subscription.

We get it. Rape is bad. Gang rape is worse. School shooting is bad. High school sucks. Victims internalize their pain. Moms are overbearing. Other people suck. Putting a "twist" on that doesn't make all those things novel. There was so much potential in this. It could have been darker and edgier and actually more fun than this. You could totally tell this was an adaptation from a New York Times author, female at that, who possibly experienced something similar. The writing was very Vogue-y and Cosmo-y (not words, but how else can you describe inorganic, contrived, and a Downtown woman's wet dream). The length was too long for the payoff, and I waited because I thought the payoff was going to be so much better. Ended up being a filmed healing camp. This is a case of "the book was better", I'm sure, because this should have never been made into film. P. S. Forgiveness is a powerful thing.

So many plot holes, where to begin. Why did Rose only pursue black people? Why wasn't her brother enlisted to do the same? Why was the multiple month long courting processes necessary when her brother just kidnapped people from the street? Why did she revert to her weird cereal-eating, pulled back ponytail self after months of acting "normal"? Her real self was never detected by Chris?? After 5 months?? How did Chris get the cotton in his ears? Who was Georgina supposed to be? Why did she break character and scream "you ruined my house" at the end? Why were she and the groundskeeper servants, especially if the groundskeeper was supposed to be the grandfather? Why was the mother who wasn't an Armitage by blood in on this? How was she able to hypnotize all those people? Why was the red box left readily available for Chris to look in and see the pictures? Why were all the "friends" in on it? No one thought it was bizarre? No one thought to call the police?? (Andre is still a victim! No one is going to help him??) Everyone wanted their brains in a black person's body?? Especially after they saw the results of the surgery?? Everyone who undergoes the surgery turns into a zombie! They wanted that?? They bid on that?? The grandfather only wanted the body to run?? Why were the victims afforded an opportunity to see a video of what's about to happen to them? Why was a video made? The siblings were about ten in the video, where are the multiple other victims since this has been an over ten year serial crime? Just like Lost? The Dharma project? Skeleton Key?? Whew. After the hype settled, I hope people can reevaluate their praise for this one-dimensional fluff, that is, if they're honest and strong enough to do it, no matter what race the director is. Cowards all around. Cowardly critics for lauding a truly mediocre film and cowardly filmmaking for pussyfooting with the racism. (If they're gonna go there, they should have gone all the way there.) The "Crash" and Marisa Tomei of the Oscars: this will DEFINITELY not stand the test of time. I'm afraid Peele is just another Shyamalan, making movies merely from a pitch and a plot twist (clearly evident by "Us").

Isn't this movie just a prolonged rip-off of a Treehouse of Horror episode where Bart meets his evil twin brother locked up in the attic only to find out he's really the evil twin? If the doppelganger survived so long and had a family, what does it matter that she's really just the doppelganger? (Nobody noticed she wasn't "human"? After having TWO kids? Wow her husband is dense.) Why would her son be afraid since she's really his mother, doppelganger or not? This is why you shouldn't make a movie merely based on a good pitch, Hollywood. But who cares anyway; you're making millions off "one-and-dones". Get your money before people figure out the con and move on to the next, right? Hollywood is the real life Music Man.