When I read the description for Big Sky, I jumped all over it. I love a good survival thriller and the cast sounded good and the concept sounded like it couldn't possibly go wrong. Of course this is an indie film appealing to critics and artsy types so I should have known it would be anything but conventional. Big Sky is slow. That is the biggest issue with it. It is some sort of character study focusing on a young girl with a lot of mental health issues like agoraphobia and Obsessive Compulsive disorder trying to survive and get help after her mother and co-travellers are shot and left for dead by some criminals. The plot is really a mess and nothing really makes a lot of sense and a lot of plot points are left unanswered including (unless I dozed off and missed it) the entire point of why the gunman are doing this. At the very least the makers of this owe the audience a decent explanation as to the motive for this brutal crime and you get nothing. The characters are very underdeveloped and empty and the best thing about the film are that the two main characters are played by strong actresses and the setting of the desert actually adds an element of intrigue to it.
Bella Thorne plays the agoraphobic girl heading to a treatment centre. Thorne was really terrific in Blended last year and since then she seems to be popping up everywhere. This might have been a decent role for her but the characters are really poorly written. Still Thorne is good enough to keep your attention and she tries to utilize what they give her as best as possible. Kyra Sedgwick is her Mom who has been shot and desperately fight for her life. Sedgwick is appropriately intense and certainly tries her best as well. She has good chemistry with Thorne and without them this film would have been a total fail. Frank Grillo and Aaron Tveit are completely wasted as the "bad guys." They have this bizarre relationship and a complex back and forth between them but there is no background given and we don't understand their motives and Grillo should have been given far more to work with as he is a great character actor.
Jorge Michel Grau has had a few small credits to his name and I'm sorry to say that this does nothing for his name. There isn't even a style that I can speak to here and I think he doesn't handle his cast well at all. I'm not even sure how I sat through it for so long but I had to know how it would end because naturally I assumed all the answers left outstanding would be solved and they aren't. The ending is strange and out there and leaves you feeling completely unsatisfied. For a film that reads really well it ends up feeling more like a letdown. It isn't a thriller or a drama and I'm not sure where it belongs. Its a dud unfortunately. 4/10
Bella Thorne plays the agoraphobic girl heading to a treatment centre. Thorne was really terrific in Blended last year and since then she seems to be popping up everywhere. This might have been a decent role for her but the characters are really poorly written. Still Thorne is good enough to keep your attention and she tries to utilize what they give her as best as possible. Kyra Sedgwick is her Mom who has been shot and desperately fight for her life. Sedgwick is appropriately intense and certainly tries her best as well. She has good chemistry with Thorne and without them this film would have been a total fail. Frank Grillo and Aaron Tveit are completely wasted as the "bad guys." They have this bizarre relationship and a complex back and forth between them but there is no background given and we don't understand their motives and Grillo should have been given far more to work with as he is a great character actor.
Jorge Michel Grau has had a few small credits to his name and I'm sorry to say that this does nothing for his name. There isn't even a style that I can speak to here and I think he doesn't handle his cast well at all. I'm not even sure how I sat through it for so long but I had to know how it would end because naturally I assumed all the answers left outstanding would be solved and they aren't. The ending is strange and out there and leaves you feeling completely unsatisfied. For a film that reads really well it ends up feeling more like a letdown. It isn't a thriller or a drama and I'm not sure where it belongs. Its a dud unfortunately. 4/10