Very good movie. The first half has really a good pace of the story, and nearly all events surprise/shock you. There's so many things happening, and you barely have time to process a very dramatic scene before the next one hits you. It all fits beatifully together, and it's fairly amazing how you can pack that much content into so few minutes. It's even got some very decent action scenes, I didn't excpect that in a family drama.
Actors all doing a great job, especially the two children actors. Solid work from all the seasoned adult actors. I'm impressed also with the supporting actors, for instance the doctor and the lawyers. Also with the almost-lover - she had to strike a fine balance between being credible as a romantic interest but not coming across as so sympathetic that you'd want the hero to leave his family for her. So if she is too sympathetic, that's bad, and if she is too little sympathetic, that's also bad, since then it would not be credible Leo was attracted to her. She hit the balance perfectly.
The reason I'm giving this only 7 stars and not more is that there is a weak part in the movie - the trial part. It felt like it just didn¨t fit in with the rest of the movie, and the script quality seemed to drop below the high standard of the rest of the movie, with even a goofy line or two - the rest of the movie has great dialogue. Yes, there was buildup to a conflict, but it just didn't feel right that out of nowhere we were in a court room. Perhaps the trial part was not in the original manuscript, and was put in as filler material, maybe because some other ideas were scrapped?
Anyway, there are so many good things in this movie that I highly recommend it. You could hear people crying all over the cinema. You don't see that so often.
Actors all doing a great job, especially the two children actors. Solid work from all the seasoned adult actors. I'm impressed also with the supporting actors, for instance the doctor and the lawyers. Also with the almost-lover - she had to strike a fine balance between being credible as a romantic interest but not coming across as so sympathetic that you'd want the hero to leave his family for her. So if she is too sympathetic, that's bad, and if she is too little sympathetic, that's also bad, since then it would not be credible Leo was attracted to her. She hit the balance perfectly.
The reason I'm giving this only 7 stars and not more is that there is a weak part in the movie - the trial part. It felt like it just didn¨t fit in with the rest of the movie, and the script quality seemed to drop below the high standard of the rest of the movie, with even a goofy line or two - the rest of the movie has great dialogue. Yes, there was buildup to a conflict, but it just didn't feel right that out of nowhere we were in a court room. Perhaps the trial part was not in the original manuscript, and was put in as filler material, maybe because some other ideas were scrapped?
Anyway, there are so many good things in this movie that I highly recommend it. You could hear people crying all over the cinema. You don't see that so often.