This film has a style and personality to which it remains faithful throughout; an achievement in itself already. It experiments both in its style and in its storytelling, resulting in a quite interesting movie, although sometimes questionable. The plot of the film is a murder investigation, although, really, it is more about the detective Aida. I like this transgression from the typical genre narrative and taking the liberty to be more free in the narrative development. However, I feel that this doesn't work to perfection in this case. At the beginning, for instance, I wanted the mystery narrative to develop, but I felt that time was unnecessarily spent in other conflicts, like with Megan's mother. Later into the film I realised that the film wouldn't focus too much on the mystery. However, although I appreciate this concept, I think the mystery could have been explored and developed more while still having the character developments. One thing I felt decreased the quality of the film immensely was the performances. For example, Megan's mother's scandalous screams at the police; this attitude is completely unnatural and the acting feels very fake. I felt that some reactions were just unrealistic: like when Sally learns her father died with a minor in the car and she starts sobbing. I think the film would have been highly improved if it was more subtle in its delivery. Moreover, on top of the sometimes unsubtle performances, I think that the dialogue at times was completely out of tune. I mean when the characters have mini philosophical speeches and say things like "we are all orphans" or "there is no magic in the adult trenches of existence." No one speaks like that! And I think this is the other weak point of the film: a lack of creativity in delivering these philosophical arguments, because the characters just say them, and I think that takes off their potential value. When Megan's mother speaks of cicadas, for instance, that parallelism could be done in a more creative and effective way, maybe by using the diegetic sound of a documentary about cicadas on TV and connecting it children through cuts to family pictures / baby pictures of Megan; I don't know, something like that. Using the mise-en-scene to create connections between ideas and express these philosophical thoughts in more subtle ways. I liked the part in the end, when we listen to the utopian TV show in the midst of the fight between Sally and her mother: I wanted more stuff like that. Overall, I liked the film, I think it has some valuable characteristics. I really liked the exploration of Aida and I think the wig was a powerful prop. The film's exploration of the two female immigrant characters in the USA was interesting; I think it could have focused more on that aspect while still exploring more the crime, giving more actual answers to it (but still remaining an unresolved mystery) and being more creative in delivering its philosophical parallelisms.
