Quickfire round: Yes, God, Yes

I really didn’t get this film. A sexually curious girl attending a strict catholic school navigates a challenging few days at its Kirkos retreat, and discovers that basically everyone is a hypocrite.

A common reaction to the contents of an internet chat room

That’s it. Like, that’s the movie. It’s basically any other coming-of-age film except slower and daintier. The acting was fine, but I just don’t see how it garnered the critical praise it did. Maybe I’m not American (or Christian) enough to understand what makes this such a great watch.

So, a bit more plot. Our main character is Alice, and she’s kinda lonely. She has a best friend, but relationships with others at her school are tense because she’s been accused of sneaking off with someone else’s boyfriend to toss the salad. She doesn’t know what that means, and neither did I before I googled it (suggestion: do not google it).

It’s the summer of 2000, which means beige CRT monitors, AOL, and public chatrooms. Alice asks the chatroom for their wisdom and in return they bombard her with ‘A/S/L?’ and various other sexual advances. Confused and alone, she decides to sign up to the school’s Kirkos retreat, a 3-day residential ran by Father Murphy. Honestly, the retreat is total bullshit. Alice is asked to fill in a questionnaire about her ‘feelings’, which get scrutinised towards the end of the retreat if they are a little too sexually freeing.

Alice soon discovers this for herself as she sees the camp mentors engaging in sexual activity (outside of marriage: oh the horror!) and even Father Murphy himself viewing an adult video on the office computer.

This is all fair enough, but it’s also very pedestrian. I don’t even think the turning point in the film, where Alice runs away from the retreat and tries to get served at a roadside bar, was any good at all. All of a sudden, with the words of a complete stranger, she learns to have a different outlook on life? Okay.

But, like I said, I probably just didn’t get it. Perhaps there are metaphors in here that make more sense if you’re a Catholic Christian who went through the same sort of things. As it stands, I am none of those things and so this mostly felt like a waste of time.

390w

What I thought about: You Me Her (Seasons 1-3.5)

Any interest I had in this show unfortunately fizzled out at the beginning of Season 4. Characters became annoying, the plot wore thin, and the initial intrigue I had in the show’s premise simply faded away. I’ll try and unpick my thoughts here.

I had a hard time thinking Jack’s smile was ever sincere.

What’s it about?
Married couple Jack and Emma have pretty successful careers and live in the rich and fancy suburbs of Portland, Oregon. The one thing they don’t have is a sex life. After a series of increasingly tense couples therapy sessions, Jack’s brother offers some advice: go and see an escort, and you’ll have such a good time it’ll reignite something in your own sex life.

Enter Izzie, a grad student who escorts in her spare time. Jack backs out of the session before anything serious happens, but his guilt gets the better of him and he immediately confesses to Emma. Understandably pissed, Emma arranges to met Izzie as a customer, planning on exposing her and telling her to keep the hell away from Jack. Instead, uh, they end up making out. Long story short, the couple are both infatuated with Izzie and form a polyamorous relationship.

What do I like about it?
You can’t help but be intrigued by the plot here, right? Their unusual relationship situation (not to mention the fact that Izzie is quite a bit younger than them) is a poor fit for their socially conservative professional lives, and the first couple of seasons sees Jack and Emma flip-flopping over whether to commit fully to the relationship, which at times is an emotional watch.

I also really liked the side characters. Emma’s best friend Carmen and her husband Dave are particular stand-outs, as is Izzie’s room mate and fellow escort Nina. The supporting cast really helps tie the show together and I think are a big part of what kept me invested in the show for so long.

What do I not like about it?
Unfortunately, the supporting cast’s magic eventually runs out and you start to realise how boring the main characters became, or perhaps how boring they always were. Despite claiming to be fully committed to the three-way relationship, the show is fully of petty and often bizarre fall-outs between them. Characters change their minds on a whim. Emma, who essentially comes out as bisexual in the first season, ditches the throuple for a full-blown lesbian relationship at the end of Season 2. By Season 4, she’s basically the most annoying character in the show.

Put simply, it lost its polish.

Worth a watch?
No. Not because the idea is bad – but because, if you’re a completionist like I usually am, you’ll find the latter seasons a real grind.

By the way…

• It says a lot that, when writing this review, I had to Google Jack and Emma’s names, but not Carmen or Dave’s.
• I like how, on Wikipedia, episode synopses for the show stop at the beginning of Season 3. Seems like I’m not the only one who gave up on this show.

508w

Quickfire round: Love Guaranteed

This film was rubbish. A shallow, childish, and ultimately very weird film about a man who sues a dating website for failing to find love. I mean, it sounds interesting, right? But it wasn’t good.

Susan striking the classic ‘objection!’ pose, in what is one of the more exciting parts of the movie

The trailer looked so impressive. Man shows up in lawyer’s office, asking for help to take advantage of a clause in a mega corp dating agency’s terms that guarantees love, as long as you’ve been on 1,000 dates. This guy did that, somehow. (breakfast, lunch, and dinner, he says).

Alright! David v Goliath! A kickass lawyer! 1,000 dates? Sign me up!

And then you press play and you get this sort of clown music going on in the background. The lawyer rolls up to her office in a battered old car, the handle of which falls off as she shuts it. She shoves it in her bag.

Oh no, it’s one of those Rom Coms. The ones where all the characters must be dosed up on LSD because all of their actions are slightly exaggerated and eccentric. This is the sort of thing you see in kid’s movies except that kids don’t really understand the concept of suing a company so I have no idea why they did it this way.

Anyway, yeah, she’s a great lawyer but she’s too nice because she does everything pro bono and so can’t afford to look after herself. Her client is supposed to be a nice, even charming, guy (no prizes for guessing he’s the plot’s love interest) but when someone walks into your office and says he’s been on 1,000 dates, would you ever – ever – think of them as charming?

I will save you all 90 minutes of your time. For the curious, and this is something I saw coming after about 20 minutes, the case goes to trial and he confesses his love for his lawyer, which means, technically, that he did find love through Love Guaranteed after all. The case is withdrawn. But then… the company pays them the damages anyway (either way they were destined for charity) and wants to make them the ‘new face’ of the company???

???

That’s it. That’s the review.

363w.

Quick-fire round: The End of the Fucking World (Season 2)

We saw the true nature of both lead characters play out in full during the first season, so what did this season bring to keep us engaged? Not a lot, really.

A new character and perhaps the only interesting thing about this season

The thing that attracted me to the original season of this show was the insane premise – a boy who meets a girl and plans to kill her. Thing is, we know that’s not happening now. We know he likes her, and we know he’s not really all that psychopathic. The ending to the first season was quite epic. At the time, I really wanted a second season. But in hindsight, they really could have just left it there.

The show tries to keep the story alive by introducing a newly psychopathic character. But it all loops back to the same story, and the side plots are quite weak. The show felt very slow-moving, even for half-hour episodes.

You’ll no doubt have watched this already if you were a die-hard fan of the first season. If you’re new to the series – give the first one a watch, I highly recommend it. But you can stop it there.

200w

What I thought about: Midsommar

This one had been sitting on my to-watch list for a while. I can’t say that I care any more about it after having finally gotten round to watching it.

Just like the movie – visually stunning, but you’re still unimpressed

What’s it about?
A college student, her nearly-estranged boyfriend, and his friends are invited to attend a midsummer celebration at one of the friends’ ancestral commune in Halsingland, Sweden. Effectively a cult of sorts, the Hågra believe a lot of really weird shit.

After initially receiving a warm welcome, the group become increasingly disturbed at the traditions of the Hågra, and this escalates as they are encouraged (or forced) to join in with some of them.

What do I like about it?
It’s visually quite good. Most of the scenes take place outdoors in lush green fields, and there are a lot of pretty flower crowns and what not going on. Also, there are some really well detailed gorey bits. Not wanting to spoil any plot here, but most of the ‘horror’ aspect of this film is found in the rather sickening scenes which, shall we just say, involve human flesh.

To be fair to the movie, it also performs well at being plain weird whilst also being, in a sense, coherent. It’s as if the writers got together and thought “what really crazy stuff can we put in here and for it to still make a little bit of sense?”

What do I not like about it?
It’s slow, and to be honest I’m not really sure what the point of it is. Maybe I’m just the type of person that prefers more action, something a bit more hands-on.

A lot of the bad stuff happens off screen. We see the characters go to bed one minute, and the next there’s a shocking discovery. I suppose it’s required to build up the suspense and keep everyone guessing, but I just found it a bit boring.

Worth a watch?
No. It really isn’t, unless you’re the type of person that’s into really creative films which, to most people, lack purpose. But then, to me, that’s most Oscar-winning films anyway.

By the way…

• It’s set in Sweden but filmed in Hamburg, for some reason.
• At one point there’s a lot of nudity, so be careful about that.

385w