It is sooooooooooooooo slow, and wastes a lot of time telling a super simple story, at a pace that makes you want to stop watching, despite the beautiful scenery and great cinematography.
The actors are good but the writing is weak, and the timing is just bad, slow and not enough is happening for the moody pacing they are decided to use. It just makes the film much worse than it needs to be. Perhaps if they had taken out at least 35 minutes of the film, it would be more passable. This story was far too blah for them to try to milk the scenes and story as if there was some drama to be found if they just wasted more time on each weak point.
This is all such a shame because the actors are wonderful, the music is good, the story in the hands of another Director might have worked better if it was shorter or decided what the focus of the story was going to be - mystery, romance, comeuppance for the rich buy, something! As is, it never really decided what the focus and underlying theme of the story was, and therefore, it just waffles around aimlessly and foolishly. I doubt that the book was this aimless or it would not have won the award it supposedly did.
Both Hedland and McDonald deserve better.
The actors are good but the writing is weak, and the timing is just bad, slow and not enough is happening for the moody pacing they are decided to use. It just makes the film much worse than it needs to be. Perhaps if they had taken out at least 35 minutes of the film, it would be more passable. This story was far too blah for them to try to milk the scenes and story as if there was some drama to be found if they just wasted more time on each weak point.
This is all such a shame because the actors are wonderful, the music is good, the story in the hands of another Director might have worked better if it was shorter or decided what the focus of the story was going to be - mystery, romance, comeuppance for the rich buy, something! As is, it never really decided what the focus and underlying theme of the story was, and therefore, it just waffles around aimlessly and foolishly. I doubt that the book was this aimless or it would not have won the award it supposedly did.
Both Hedland and McDonald deserve better.