This movie is NOT a date flick. It's NOT a romantic comedy.
This film is a very deliberate exploration of the subject of bullying.
The two primary characters, Ashley and Michael travel through four distinct and rather excruciating stories about bullying, and the psychological results and personal reactions extending from each case.
This was interesting enough on its own, but each case was cut and dried in a sense, because the villains and reactions were logical and easy to see. It was the fifth case of bullying comprising the entire story structure which truly made this film fascinating.
That fifth case is that of the male protagonist (the character of Michael), pushing Ashley into the day's relationship. Despite his clearly positive intentions, it was all achieved through deception, pushiness and repeated attempts to violate free will. Michael would not take "No" for an answer despite Ashley's constant protestations throughout their day together. The overall effect was to keep the viewer feeling disturbed and on edge, eliciting the very physiological and psychological reactions a victim suffers during a case of bullying.
All in all, this was a rather unsettling film exploring in a mature and heartfelt manner a very ugly subject which we all must face in our lives. It offered many observations and suggests some solutions which, while all of them carry questionable wisdom, will nonetheless remain in the viewer's mind to become grist for further thought. Perhaps some real insights and real solutions to the problem of bullying will come to light in the viewer as a result of watching this film.
I recommend this film as a tool to better understand and live in our world. But it's not a nice film. There is a fun component to it, and it might even be mistaken by some for the romantic date film it is patterned after, but there is a lot more going on which, even if you don't recognize it, will leave you feeling somewhat stressed and unpleasant afterwords.
To have been a better film, some actual psychology of bullying might have been discussed and explored by the characters. As it stands, there was no truly useful information offered, but rather an intelligent albeit very tentative probing of the director into a subject about which he obviously has many strong feelings, but about which he failed to offer the insight required to form accurate opinions.
How many viewers are going to go away and look up psychology books on such subjects as psychopathy, narcissism or social vampirism? Very few, I suspect. As such, it is important, I think, for the director to do that foot work on behalf of the audience and offer perhaps two or three gems of real wisdom along with such immaculate illustrations of the problem itself.
This film is a very deliberate exploration of the subject of bullying.
The two primary characters, Ashley and Michael travel through four distinct and rather excruciating stories about bullying, and the psychological results and personal reactions extending from each case.
This was interesting enough on its own, but each case was cut and dried in a sense, because the villains and reactions were logical and easy to see. It was the fifth case of bullying comprising the entire story structure which truly made this film fascinating.
That fifth case is that of the male protagonist (the character of Michael), pushing Ashley into the day's relationship. Despite his clearly positive intentions, it was all achieved through deception, pushiness and repeated attempts to violate free will. Michael would not take "No" for an answer despite Ashley's constant protestations throughout their day together. The overall effect was to keep the viewer feeling disturbed and on edge, eliciting the very physiological and psychological reactions a victim suffers during a case of bullying.
All in all, this was a rather unsettling film exploring in a mature and heartfelt manner a very ugly subject which we all must face in our lives. It offered many observations and suggests some solutions which, while all of them carry questionable wisdom, will nonetheless remain in the viewer's mind to become grist for further thought. Perhaps some real insights and real solutions to the problem of bullying will come to light in the viewer as a result of watching this film.
I recommend this film as a tool to better understand and live in our world. But it's not a nice film. There is a fun component to it, and it might even be mistaken by some for the romantic date film it is patterned after, but there is a lot more going on which, even if you don't recognize it, will leave you feeling somewhat stressed and unpleasant afterwords.
To have been a better film, some actual psychology of bullying might have been discussed and explored by the characters. As it stands, there was no truly useful information offered, but rather an intelligent albeit very tentative probing of the director into a subject about which he obviously has many strong feelings, but about which he failed to offer the insight required to form accurate opinions.
How many viewers are going to go away and look up psychology books on such subjects as psychopathy, narcissism or social vampirism? Very few, I suspect. As such, it is important, I think, for the director to do that foot work on behalf of the audience and offer perhaps two or three gems of real wisdom along with such immaculate illustrations of the problem itself.