I got to meet Ed Gass-Donnelly very briefly as I was checking in and he was checking out at Sudbury, and this has been on my list to check out while on the festival circuit. This is a very different film from Ed's last, which shows a nice variety. It's intended to be more character drama than it is a murder-mystery, which is good because... there's no mystery really. It's all pretty cut-and-dry. There are some really stylistic sequences where Ed combines music and montage and it gives it a great and unexpected energy. Visually it's a really interesting to film, but content wise I found it to be a little lacking. When I said there isn't a mystery I was wrong - the mystery is about Peter Stormare's character and his backstory. We get glimpses but never a full picture, and because of that I don't know where the character is coming from or where he needs to go. Martha Plimpton sounds like she's trying to do her best Fargo impression, and that would be great if it wasn't for the fact that no one else had that accent in the film. And sadly, Aaron Poole's character probably could have been removed from the film and it never would have made much of a difference. This sounds like I'm slagging the film, but that's not my intention. I think Ed's aim here is to make something in the vein of a Coen film, although with a more serious bend. I think he's got a great future in filmmaking and this is an interesting stepping stone.
No comments:
Post a Comment