The Scarlet Letter

An entirely misrepresented film (lesbian cover, Reeeeeeely?) with truly Tarantino level twists bogged down by Desperate Housewives style plot minus the laughs.

First of all, this film's pacing is a mess. Over developed scenes stretch on for a quarter hour while an entire opportunity for a superb subplot is squeezed into 45 seconds.

Moreover, characters are built up steadily only to end up all but irrelevant while important relationships are glossed over.

Furthermore, the cynical poster shot of the two naked women in bed leads to nothing more than a minor footnote in the entire tale...

The token lesbian moment looked quite literally as if it were tacked on just to rake in a few extra sales... Pretty poor showing... Seriously, what the hell were the marketing people thinking? Oh yes, they were probably cynically thinking of sales...

OK, with the bad out of the way...

This film had its glorious moments....

The acting and characterisation were first rate, all the major characters were excellently portrayed with top rank performances. Special props to the portrayal of the detective: equal parts charismatic and total shitbag.

The sound editing was excellent.. Clear vocals with excellent ambience in every scene. Additionally, the classical music score and incidental BGM were without fault.

But best of all, the camerawork and editing: Top notch... The cinematography is some of the best I've seen at this budget level and really played to the strengths of the storyline... Intimate closeups; dreamy, floaty vistas, Jagged, claustrophobic macros.... 10/10 and worthy of note for students of the genre.

And THE SCENE... You'll know it when you watch it: Visceral enough to give Tarantino a hard-on.

All in all, a worthwhile watch.... Just don't go in there for the lesbian scenes.