A young mother sees her husband and four-year old son off to a soccer match. She then goes home and puts the match on the television. As she watches there are explosions at the stadium. A terrorist attack kills her husband, who she didn't much like anyway, and her son, who she loved dearly, along with a thousand or so others. Oh, and as the young mother watches this unfold on the television screen she is at that moment having sex with another man.
This seems to set up a story about the young mother's guilt and grief. And there's some of that. But there's a bunch of other stuff too, none of which really works. There are conspiracy thriller elements which go practically nowhere. There are romantic entanglements as a couple of men who should really know better try to swoop in on the newly widowed young mother. In a portion of the film which strains credulity to the breaking point we see the young mother reach out to the son of one of the suicide bombers. The film goes off in so many different directions that it ends up being quite a mess. The young mother manages to hold herself together remarkably well given the circumstances. For a while anyway. But eventually she starts to crack and when she does the movie cracks too. At this point it is beyond repair.
If there is anything positive to say it is that, working from a rather lousy script, Michelle Williams still does remarkably well in the role of the young mother. Whatever little successes this movie has belong to Williams. Ewan McGregor is at least passable as one of her suitors. As the other Matthew Macfadyen is a total dud and he also draws the shortest straw, getting the absolute worst of all the film's terrible dialogue. Some of the things this character says are just laughably, impossibly bad. He speaks in a way human beings simply do not speak. The film aims for melodrama but misses the mark. The story doesn't really engage and it moves at a snail's pace. A story more focused on the mother herself and the way she coped with this tragedy might have worked. But this movie gets bogged down as it veers off in other directions. Williams does the best she can but her noble effort can't save this dud.
This seems to set up a story about the young mother's guilt and grief. And there's some of that. But there's a bunch of other stuff too, none of which really works. There are conspiracy thriller elements which go practically nowhere. There are romantic entanglements as a couple of men who should really know better try to swoop in on the newly widowed young mother. In a portion of the film which strains credulity to the breaking point we see the young mother reach out to the son of one of the suicide bombers. The film goes off in so many different directions that it ends up being quite a mess. The young mother manages to hold herself together remarkably well given the circumstances. For a while anyway. But eventually she starts to crack and when she does the movie cracks too. At this point it is beyond repair.
If there is anything positive to say it is that, working from a rather lousy script, Michelle Williams still does remarkably well in the role of the young mother. Whatever little successes this movie has belong to Williams. Ewan McGregor is at least passable as one of her suitors. As the other Matthew Macfadyen is a total dud and he also draws the shortest straw, getting the absolute worst of all the film's terrible dialogue. Some of the things this character says are just laughably, impossibly bad. He speaks in a way human beings simply do not speak. The film aims for melodrama but misses the mark. The story doesn't really engage and it moves at a snail's pace. A story more focused on the mother herself and the way she coped with this tragedy might have worked. But this movie gets bogged down as it veers off in other directions. Williams does the best she can but her noble effort can't save this dud.