I saw this at the Italian Film Festival in Los Angeles last night and couldn't believe this got play at an international fest. It's a completely homogenized, crowd pleasing vehicle. It equates putting montage images to music with character development and has all the spirit of a Lifetime Channel movie. There are moments where it actually manages to find some truth and wit, but that's quickly shattered as it races to meet every stereotypical story beat it can manage, stuffing the movie with artifice like an over-cooked turkey. Great performances are lost on it. Telling and powerful ideas about personal growth and how and why we relate to each other are fodder for placid storytelling. And I swear to god, if I have to see one more slow camera pull out from a forlorn introspective character while melancholy American pop-music swells on the soundtrack, I will physically vomit. A film so desperate to be soulful it's soulless.
