Celine and Alice are affluent next door neighbours, best friends, and each has a son: they are also best friends. Celine's son dies in an accident: does she blame Alice? Anne Hathaway is Celine and Jessica Chastain is Alice.
The first half of this movie is very good stuff. The introduction is an exercise in exposition: it does the job slickly and quickly. Then, after the accident, the depiction of how everyone deals with grief in the context of their own relationships is complex, painful and entirely convincing.
Then the movie enters psychological thriller territory. Is Celine up to nefarious shenanigans? Is it just her dealing with her grief? Or is Alice manifesting unnamed issues which she apparently suffered from in the past?
This second part is a good deal less convincing than the first part, and is fairly disappointing by comparison with the start. We've seen it a hundred times, even if we're not sure how it's going to play out.
The first half of this movie is very good stuff. The introduction is an exercise in exposition: it does the job slickly and quickly. Then, after the accident, the depiction of how everyone deals with grief in the context of their own relationships is complex, painful and entirely convincing.
Then the movie enters psychological thriller territory. Is Celine up to nefarious shenanigans? Is it just her dealing with her grief? Or is Alice manifesting unnamed issues which she apparently suffered from in the past?
This second part is a good deal less convincing than the first part, and is fairly disappointing by comparison with the start. We've seen it a hundred times, even if we're not sure how it's going to play out.