Long Day's Journey Into Night

Caution...do not watch this movie if you're already sleepy, like I was.

I'd read enough about this film to know not to try too hard to understand it and just go with the flow. But even at that, I feel like I didn't figure out how to watch it until about the half-way mark....which is when the film's opening title appears on screen, if that gives you some idea about what to expect.

Those who become frustrated with this aggressively non-linear film may be tempted to dismiss it as a bunch of random disconnected scenes that don't add up to anything. Actually, I think the movie is very carefully constructed, using visual and thematic motifs (like apples, for instance) to connect one part to another. It's as close to a visual poem as you'll find short of an outright experimental film, where recurring images and sensations replace narrative storytelling.

It's a movie that I would probably get more out of by watching multiple times, when I can focus less on trying to figure out what's happening and more on the little clues dropped here and there to guide the viewer on his merry way. But here's the thing....this movie didn't pull me in enough the first time to make me want to put the energy into watching it again. It tries for dreamy, hypnotic, and romantic, but it only succeeded in being one out of the three for me, and there was something sort of coldly formal about it. Take, for example, the oft-mentioned final hour of the film, which unspools as one crazy complicated long take (and apparently was in 3D in the theater). It's impressive for sure, but it's also a stunt. I found myself paying attention to the technical considerations that went into pulling it off rather than anything really happening on the screen. And the whole movie is kind of like that. It didn't leave me puzzling over its enigmatic mysteries. It left me wondering "hmmm....wonder how they did THAT."

Grade: B+