I won't say I hated it. However, every time I tried to stream it on my computer, I found myself doing other things. And by "other things," I mean things like playing Pony Island or coding my website. For whatever reason, the film could not hold my attention.
That in itself is a little surprising. I am a writer and like movies about writers. However, the old "the writer is losing his mind in his story" schtick has been done far too many times for anyone to have anything remotely interesting to say about it. Stephen King did something of this nature in Secret Window and yes, it was done much better than in this film. Again, it wasn't horribly done. It was just too familiar a path for anything to bear a lot of watching.
I normally like to do the "sandwich method" of critiquing, opening with something good, engaging in some mild criticism, then closing with something good. My best attempt at this method, for this movie, is here:
The score was actually very good. It heightened tension when it needed to do so and, while I don't remember any particular music from the movie, it added to the atmosphere of the film. Two things that kept me from enjoying the film were the number of stereotypes that made it into both the story and the meta-story, as well as the lack of likable characters. Alcoholic writer? Check. Suicide with toaster? Check. Actress using auditions as an excuse to get out of the house? Check. After all too many of these lazy tropes, my brain "checked" out. My enjoyment of the movie was not enhanced by the characters, at all. The main character (who was too nasty to be the "protagonist," let alone the "hero") was paranoid and mean. His wife was self-absorbed. The man that the main character wanted to hire to seduce her was unsympathetic at best, slimy at worst. The only decent human being was the agent--but please, tell me how "The Perception" got on the publishing house's list so quickly? He may have been a nice man, but was he a miracle worker? Finally, the cinematography wasn't horrible. The opening sequence, presented in reverse, was a nice little hint that nothing the viewer would see was trustworthy. If the rest of the film had been as innovative, I would have scored it at least two points higher.
If I had a laptop to work or play games on and streamed the film on my desktop or a television, the film might have held my attention a bit better. As it stands, unfortunately, creating starter reindeer ponies and designing a webpage for my new puppy won the day.
