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Post by Deleted on Jan 8, 2021 20:40:19 GMT
Did we want to go ahead and get the ball rolling? Burstyn is absolutely searing in this - finally, a role worthy of her talents!
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Post by stephen on Jan 8, 2021 20:49:45 GMT
The whole thing felt like a lost Cassavetes film, but kind of in a minor key. The first twenty minutes are exquisite, devastating filmmaking . . . but after that, the film kind of becomes aimless and loses a lot of momentum. I found some of the scenes bordering on laughably ridiculous (particularly the affair stuff with Sarah Snook, where she was just pretty awful -- I usually love her but she was just not doing it for me here), and I think that Burstyn was just kind of rote until her big scene, which is probably one of her career highlights. But I think I found Molly Parker to be much more compelling in this, despite the fact that she's almost entirely after the first act, and would be my pick for the supporting actress push for this movie. Vanessa Kirby is riveting as all the reviews say she is, though, and it really is a shame Shia LaBeouf is a gigantic tool, because he's very good here and would've been a fair choice for a supporting actor campaign. I liked it overall, but it's a jagged little pill to swallow.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 8, 2021 21:00:45 GMT
stephen - I definitely liked the film more than you, but I agree that the entire cast is excellent (with the exception of Snook - though I don't think it's really her fault - her scenes just felt really out of place and poorly written to me).
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Post by notacrook on Jan 9, 2021 0:05:14 GMT
Vanessa Kirby is truly brilliant here, as is Ellen Burstyn in the key scene between the two of them. Agree on the general consensus that the intense first thirty minutes are powerful and brave filmmaking, before things devolve into pretty aimless, lifeless melodrama. Also some really heavy handed symbolism that reaches the point of parody (I thought it was going to go out on a really powerful note, and then they added one more scene that was just way too much). Still, some powerful stuff to be found here, and I really hope Kirby gets that nomination.
I really liked Snook, who I just think is an effortlessly great actress, but agreed that her part of the film was totally unnecessary. A lot of the LaBeouf stuff in general was pretty poorly handled. I think the film would have been better with a much more concise focus on Kirby and Burstyn in the wake of this tragic loss.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 9, 2021 1:32:18 GMT
notacrook - Are you hoping for a nomination for Burstyn, too? I think for me, this will be an instance of a film with a brilliant leading performance, but with one supporting performance that just touched me more. (See also: Sound of Metal and Paul Raci)
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Post by Allenism on Jan 9, 2021 4:03:12 GMT
Yeah, this was kind of a disappointment. Kirby is very strong, and both Parker and Burstyn pack a punch in their limited screen time, but the film overall lacks a cohesive identity. The cinema verite vibe it goes for in the opening act is spellbinding, but then it sort of tries on a bunch of different hats without committing to one. There are some powerfully raw moments (mostly between Kirby and Burstyn), but far too much connective tissue in between them. The final scene borders on cringeworthy if I'm going to be honest. Also, what was with LeBeouf's Native American-sounding accent?? He's good here, but that affected speech pattern...
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Post by dadsburgers on Jan 9, 2021 4:17:18 GMT
I want to sleep on this one, but my first reaction is that it was really, really good-- one of the best I've seen this year so far. Kirby and Burstyn live up to the hype and Molly Parker leaves you wanting more of her. I do think the writing sort of unraveled as it went on and I didn't like some of the plot points, but the directing was outstanding. Also, I hate how much I liked Shia LaBeouf in this-- he was becoming one of my favorite modern actors recently until it became pretty impossible to ignore how horrible he's been.
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Post by notacrook on Jan 9, 2021 9:45:22 GMT
notacrook - Are you hoping for a nomination for Burstyn, too? I think for me, this will be an instance of a film with a brilliant leading performance, but with one supporting performance that just touched me more. (See also: Sound of Metal and Paul Raci) I'd love for Burstyn to get nominated! She probably just makes my own personal picks, and of those likely to get nominated by the Academy, she certainly deserves to be up there. I thought she did a great job at making you sense the unseen years of struggle and pain that has ultimately made her the way she is now, all coming to a head in that blazing monologue. Agreed on Raci as well! One of the most beautiful performances in recent memory.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 9, 2021 21:16:48 GMT
notacrook - If Burstyn is nominated, she'll be the oldest Acting nominee ever - just barely edging out Christopher Plummer for All the Money in the World.
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Post by JangoB on Jan 10, 2021 12:44:57 GMT
I thought it was fine - the movie is slightly messy and there are a couple of things here that seem to come from another movie (like the 'take the check and never come back' soap opera thing) but overall a film like this hinges on whether it makes you feel empathy for its lead character and sustains that empathy throughout. It did for me. Despite its somewhat peculiar mixture of Euro-realism and very obvious lyricism, overall I was invested and cared about the woman at its centre. I kinda wish the narrative was wholly focused on her because for a film titled "Pieces of a Woman" we sure spend a lot of time with the dude of the story (I'm not the one to conflate the art and the artist but man, due to recent revelations some of those scenes with LaBeouf were...yucky). Vanessa Kirby is quite excellent and I love that apart from some big Actory moments the performance is mostly quiet and subdued. Even in the centerpiece birthing sequence she doesn't really overdo it - this could've been a grueling actor-fest full of shouting and screaming but for the most part she actually plays it as if the character is fully aware of the pain and is trying to downplay it a little with chuckles or slightly humorous self-aware sounds to calm herself down which I think is a VERY natural human reaction to pain (for me anyway). The proper screaming starts when the pain reaches the level of unbearable, and that's quite realistic too. And for the rest of the film we just quietly observe her emotional state, which she portrays very well without saying a whole lot of dialogue. The supporting cast is good too - Burstyn is quite strong, LaBeouf is decent, but the best of the secondary cast is probably Molly Parker for me. It's still Kirby's movie through and through though. I wish it ended a minute or so earlier - they held that very good shot of the river for quite some time and it felt like an excellent way to finish the movie, but then that apple-filled epilogue comes on...which is okay because you finally get to see some happiness for Martha but it's just a bit too much. This is again where the film's grit and lyricism come against each other - even though it's a happy moment, it feels slightly out of place. And between the two on-going symbols in the film - bridges and apples - I wish the film stopped by resolving the bridge one instead of then jumping to apples too.
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Post by pacinoyes on Jan 10, 2021 14:06:41 GMT
less than 6/10
No written true story arc and that tanks the movie....its opening, a Saving Private Ryan wtf is THIS opening that is dazzling in itself but not built upon subsequently except by Vanessa Kirby's acting so it later seems like a depressive stunt device . What comes later doesn't cohere, coalesce or build much.
The only performances that resonate are Kirby and Burstyn who convey a genuine mother-child dynamic that is a theme by them but not so much in the script and should have been the entire film which alone would have improved this......Burstyn isn't memorable in every scene actually but is in the big scene (she literally could be Oscar nodded for almost just that scene) and Kirby would be praiseworthy here if she did nothing else - just for how she plays the part physically alone ........ but she also deepens scenes too (her facial reaction to the child she sees while shopping, the cutting inflection ways she speaks to her mother).
The physical acting Kirby does in the opening and then how she uses her body to contrast that later is fascinating in a year where some of the best female performances have used their bodies in similarly crazy great ways (Azura Skye in The Swerve, Cate Blanchett in Mrs. America, Morfydd Clark in Saint Maud)
No other performance here resonates, or suggest a character backstory or a relationship connection because they are there to move events along:
LaBeouf remains 0 for his maddening tic-induced acting career for me (want a good scrabble word pal? Try"inauthentic") - the acting in this film aside from Kirby and at times Burstyn is TV movie level, so is the writing which suggests a dumbed down Bergman except you know was a genius in addition to being an actual writer.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 10, 2021 21:47:23 GMT
The only performances that resonate are Kirby and Burstyn who convey a genuine mother-child dynamic that is a theme by them but not so much in the script and should have been the entire film which alone would have improved this...... I think we need an Autumn Sonata-type two-hander for Burstyn and Kirby now... Such an unlikely mother-daughter pairing (especially since Burstyn is 56 years older than Kirby), but a great one. I'd rather have the actress playing the mother be significantly older as shown here than the usual Hollywood thing of the actress being only about 10 to 15 years older.
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Post by Pittsnogle_Goggins on Feb 4, 2021 15:23:55 GMT
I had been putting off watching this since I knew the subject matter would be a tough one for me. Echoing the praise of Kirby and Burstyn. Will be rooting for noms for both of them. LeBeouf was very hit or miss. He had a few scenes I think worked very well and a lot more that didn’t. I didn’t mind the 2nd half of the film as much as most, especially a lot of the smaller moments with Kirby. Overall I def liked it, but there were a few scenes that flat out didn’t work for me which brings it down a bit.
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Post by The_Cake_of_Roth on Feb 25, 2021 23:05:32 GMT
Aside from the stunning opening 30 minutes, this was just okay, and I agree that it would have benefited from more focus on the Kirby/Burstyn relationship. The film ends up just depicting grief and the aftermath of the tragedy in a broad strokes way, and things just sort of happen without being fully fleshed out.
LaBeouf has a couple good moments, but as others have said, he seems weirdly affected throughout. It comes across like he's portraying the character as someone who's constantly putting on an act even when he's alone with his partner, but it's more likely he's just playing up the the blue-collar, "boorish" side of the character, and it just rings false. I think his performances in things like Honey Boy and American Honey work because I think there's a self-consciousness that's built into those specific characters, but here I think his limitations as an actor are kind of exposed.
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