The good:
Intriguing actors, acting, setting, sets, premise, music (um, some of the music, anyway), and, most of all, intriguing cinematography.
The movie had me fascinated and interested in what was going to happen and what it was all about from the start until - and I do mean *until* - the end.
The bad: While I don't require characters in movies to be likeable, I can tell when a character's personality and the actor's way of acting it is false...so, even though I think Julia Roberts is generally a great actress - and she technically acted well here - it seems as if she and/or the director decided to have her character go intensely in the direction of being a major "Karen" - and I suspect, based on some of the early credits and a line or two spoken by the homeowner's daughter approximately mid-way in, that they wanted Julia's character to be a "Karen" for the sake of being a Karen...yet it never once rang true...instead, it clearly seemed fake & forced & part of an (outside-the-movie) agenda.
Also, some of the dialogue seemed strange & unfitting in content (for example, the scenes where the adults are mixed...and, in the bizarre claim the homeowner's daughter makes to her dad later that night - there was nothing *at all* to suggest to the viewer why she'd get the sense of what she claimed, so we're left wondering if we'll ever find out why she lied, or if it was yet another attempt at falsely & gratuitously trying to put a certain group in a negative light for no reason (yet on purpose). Well, there never was talk of a lie later on, so it seems to be the latter case).
And what's with the title? I'd have to put spoilers here to back up my point, so I'll just say that, once you watch the movie, you'll see the title doesn't fit the movie at all, unless it was meant to apply to only the first 10 minutes of the movie. After that, "leave" doesn't apply, "world" doesn't apply, and "behind" doesn't apply...nor do they apply when you put them all together. Strange.
The ugly: The ending. No one can philosophize that ending into a good light. Nope.
The movie had me fascinated and interested in what was going to happen and what it was all about from the start until - and I do mean *until* - the end.
The bad: While I don't require characters in movies to be likeable, I can tell when a character's personality and the actor's way of acting it is false...so, even though I think Julia Roberts is generally a great actress - and she technically acted well here - it seems as if she and/or the director decided to have her character go intensely in the direction of being a major "Karen" - and I suspect, based on some of the early credits and a line or two spoken by the homeowner's daughter approximately mid-way in, that they wanted Julia's character to be a "Karen" for the sake of being a Karen...yet it never once rang true...instead, it clearly seemed fake & forced & part of an (outside-the-movie) agenda.
Also, some of the dialogue seemed strange & unfitting in content (for example, the scenes where the adults are mixed...and, in the bizarre claim the homeowner's daughter makes to her dad later that night - there was nothing *at all* to suggest to the viewer why she'd get the sense of what she claimed, so we're left wondering if we'll ever find out why she lied, or if it was yet another attempt at falsely & gratuitously trying to put a certain group in a negative light for no reason (yet on purpose). Well, there never was talk of a lie later on, so it seems to be the latter case).
And what's with the title? I'd have to put spoilers here to back up my point, so I'll just say that, once you watch the movie, you'll see the title doesn't fit the movie at all, unless it was meant to apply to only the first 10 minutes of the movie. After that, "leave" doesn't apply, "world" doesn't apply, and "behind" doesn't apply...nor do they apply when you put them all together. Strange.
The ugly: The ending. No one can philosophize that ending into a good light. Nope.
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