Lost on me: A contrary opinion

Shane Madill
The Silhouette

This movie is terrible. The words to fully describe what I felt while watching this escape me. The sheer amount of disappointment, boredom, and overall lack of interest combine together to create a bottomless pit into which I thrust any positive emotion I could have had about this movie. Though the first bit was fun to break down and analyse, the film’s themes are repeated to an absolutely mind-numbing point. This movie may be one of the most overanalysed pieces of work in the history of cinema. I guess if you chuck enough art house tendencies at a metaphorical wall, some critic will find a way to make it all stick.

There is absolutely no reason to care about any of these characters. No one has any goals to aspire to or any meaningful struggles or challenges they actually want to get through. The movie purposely shoots itself in the foot by ensuring that nothing meaningful happens at any point during its span. For over an hour, it drags itself through insanely simple characterization and the idea of how Bob and Charlotte provide each other a release from the rest of their lives. This is not an uncommon theme, and it should not be the only forward momentum this film has for its entire duration. Having a movie of completely passive and malleable characters, though easy to write, is poison to the viewer. Pick any four-minute segment in the movie, put it on repeat for the next hour and a half, and you have the same experience.

The acting was pretty good, though. No real complaints about that.