Great cast! Everyone gives a zillion percent and there is some exceptional choice casting too, though the actors weren't used to their potential and their roles even came across as superfluous; but okay, I was just happy to see those specific actors.
Some of the characters are too much a caricature, especially the character played by Charlize Theron. She's such a cliché, I'm afraid to say. There's something 'prodigal' about Sylvia/Mariana, both as an adult and as a teenage girl.
The story builds nicely though slow; sometimes it's too slow and drags for no apparent reason. The problem is that there are bits and pieces of the storyline that are also left dangling. They tie up nicely on the one hand but then, you are left feeling that they will continue to be tools for the future insight of the characters but then they're not. So those arcs were like dangling participles in the narrative, as far as I was concerned.
This film though, as I mention in my tag line is a perfect example of how flashbacks (and dream sequences) are often a VERY tricky business in a film and if they're not properly shuffled into the sequences, it can make the film disjointed and cluttered. This film has those moments but because of all the rest of the things it has going for it (landscape, good actors and a partly interesting premise) it makes you want to give it a chance and wait out the fog to get to the cliffhanger.
Some of the characters are too much a caricature, especially the character played by Charlize Theron. She's such a cliché, I'm afraid to say. There's something 'prodigal' about Sylvia/Mariana, both as an adult and as a teenage girl.
The story builds nicely though slow; sometimes it's too slow and drags for no apparent reason. The problem is that there are bits and pieces of the storyline that are also left dangling. They tie up nicely on the one hand but then, you are left feeling that they will continue to be tools for the future insight of the characters but then they're not. So those arcs were like dangling participles in the narrative, as far as I was concerned.
This film though, as I mention in my tag line is a perfect example of how flashbacks (and dream sequences) are often a VERY tricky business in a film and if they're not properly shuffled into the sequences, it can make the film disjointed and cluttered. This film has those moments but because of all the rest of the things it has going for it (landscape, good actors and a partly interesting premise) it makes you want to give it a chance and wait out the fog to get to the cliffhanger.