In high school, when I started trying to see the GREAT totemic films, this was high on my list. And I found it a bit dull. I didn’t get it.
I watched it again while I was in university, and it totally clicked. I got it. I thought it was insightful but, more importantly, so so funny.
Then, after university, I had my own quarter-life crisis, just like Benjamin. I knew at the time that I was feeling what he…
Good movie!
I love the structure that intersperses material that would have fit into trashy interview shows or television news magazines of the time through the film, which can almost be seen as a big-budget recreation of a true crime story. Shows like A Current Affair or Hard Copy loved stuff like this in the 90s, and now there are endless shows and podcasts about these types of stories. You know there’s a podcast about this story in the world…
This was pretty great! I knew the story, knew about the kids, but I liked how it took its time getting to them. First the mass sleep, then the pregnancies (a plot point handled as well as you could in 1960), then the kids. There are some genuine creeps and shocks here, even 60+ years later.
Boring and pointless and has very little to say. What it seems to be saying is that people misunderstood the wildly successful first film. That film was just pure misery with an overlay of 70s aesthetic. This film aims to punish fans of that film with lethargy. Everything here feels half-hearted and glacially-paced. And boring. Did I mention boring?
Gaga was good. She had conviction, even if it is in service of such a resentful film.
