Rather lame "suspense" film that is made on the laughably optimistic assumption that the film-makers can flat-out lie to you for an hour, and I mean completely lie about everything, but then pull out the goofy Oh You Had It All Wrong card, and actually get away with it.
What I mean is that the first hour is basically all horse manure. None if it happened as shown. We find out instead that:
1. Burke never existed.
2. Kelly is actually Burke and it's Kelly who killed his family. (When? We have no clue, considering that even the "one year later" caption may have been a lie. That's what happens with liars: once caught, nobody ever believes them.)
3. Perkins isn't a killer. Hell, Perkins isn't even a rude yuppie! Even his absurdly confrontational attitude was imagined by Kelly! It appears that Perkins had been speaking normally all along. In other words, the writers and the director gave us ZIP truth in the first hour.
4. I guess this means Gould is fictional too. The scene at the shrink's office? BS too.
5. Everything in the first hour is just a vague, false, blurry, fictionalized version of what really transpired. But hey, "we had the decency to tell you that after an hour, so we're in the clear. Right, audience?"
"You've been lied to, audience. Nice one, huh? How ingenious we film-makers are. We don't even have to set up a REAL mystery anymore. We can now build a mystery based on deceit, misinformation and lies. We tell you lies - and then at the end we admit we were lying and be generous enough to tell you the real plot. Clever, huh?"
Not really. Using this dumb shtick I guess you could play a sci-fi movie with monsters to your audience for an hour - but then suddenly switch to a costume drama, saying that it was all a dream by some 18th-century child. Clever, huh? Not so much clever as just plain dumb. Not to mention easy to write.
A movie can withhold information, yes. It can try to confuse you a bit, yes. It can challenge your perception of what's going on, yes. But what it can't do is mislead you about every single thing/aspect, for an HOUR, then expect the audience to be awed by this "amazing" twist. Any moron can set up a "story" like that. Deceit is easy. A proper twist exists within what the viewer knows, not within a movie that is never shown.
I wasn't awed, I found it laughable. If you lie to me about everything, then what chance do I have? If I can't trust the first hour why would I trust the last 30 minutes either?
To exacerbate things, the plot moves far too slowly. We even have extended, pointless scenes of Kelly sweeping floors while entire songs play in the background. Like MTV throwing clips into a movie.
Hipster indie rock, which makes it far worse. Horrible crap that doesn't even suit the tone of the movie.
Oz Perkins, one of the writers, had already shown that he doesn't have a penchant for writing with his "I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives In the House". That movie is stylish but its content is one big drawn-out cop-out with no resolution. This time the resolution is based on laughable, previous lies. Oz is of course a nepotist, son of that awful over-actor, the nerd from "Psycho", and in fact Oz is not even one of the really bad nepotists. His exaggerated portrayal of a narcissistic yuppie here is ludicrous but at least he looks the part. And since Kelly imagined everything, he had an excuse to be over-the-top. A flimsy excuse, but still an excuse. He just needs to stay away from writing - because a good writer isn't created simply by being born into a powerful Hollywood clan.
What I mean is that the first hour is basically all horse manure. None if it happened as shown. We find out instead that:
1. Burke never existed.
2. Kelly is actually Burke and it's Kelly who killed his family. (When? We have no clue, considering that even the "one year later" caption may have been a lie. That's what happens with liars: once caught, nobody ever believes them.)
3. Perkins isn't a killer. Hell, Perkins isn't even a rude yuppie! Even his absurdly confrontational attitude was imagined by Kelly! It appears that Perkins had been speaking normally all along. In other words, the writers and the director gave us ZIP truth in the first hour.
4. I guess this means Gould is fictional too. The scene at the shrink's office? BS too.
5. Everything in the first hour is just a vague, false, blurry, fictionalized version of what really transpired. But hey, "we had the decency to tell you that after an hour, so we're in the clear. Right, audience?"
"You've been lied to, audience. Nice one, huh? How ingenious we film-makers are. We don't even have to set up a REAL mystery anymore. We can now build a mystery based on deceit, misinformation and lies. We tell you lies - and then at the end we admit we were lying and be generous enough to tell you the real plot. Clever, huh?"
Not really. Using this dumb shtick I guess you could play a sci-fi movie with monsters to your audience for an hour - but then suddenly switch to a costume drama, saying that it was all a dream by some 18th-century child. Clever, huh? Not so much clever as just plain dumb. Not to mention easy to write.
A movie can withhold information, yes. It can try to confuse you a bit, yes. It can challenge your perception of what's going on, yes. But what it can't do is mislead you about every single thing/aspect, for an HOUR, then expect the audience to be awed by this "amazing" twist. Any moron can set up a "story" like that. Deceit is easy. A proper twist exists within what the viewer knows, not within a movie that is never shown.
I wasn't awed, I found it laughable. If you lie to me about everything, then what chance do I have? If I can't trust the first hour why would I trust the last 30 minutes either?
To exacerbate things, the plot moves far too slowly. We even have extended, pointless scenes of Kelly sweeping floors while entire songs play in the background. Like MTV throwing clips into a movie.
Hipster indie rock, which makes it far worse. Horrible crap that doesn't even suit the tone of the movie.
Oz Perkins, one of the writers, had already shown that he doesn't have a penchant for writing with his "I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives In the House". That movie is stylish but its content is one big drawn-out cop-out with no resolution. This time the resolution is based on laughable, previous lies. Oz is of course a nepotist, son of that awful over-actor, the nerd from "Psycho", and in fact Oz is not even one of the really bad nepotists. His exaggerated portrayal of a narcissistic yuppie here is ludicrous but at least he looks the part. And since Kelly imagined everything, he had an excuse to be over-the-top. A flimsy excuse, but still an excuse. He just needs to stay away from writing - because a good writer isn't created simply by being born into a powerful Hollywood clan.