Review of The Moment

The Moment (I) (2013)
5/10
unrealized potential
9 February 2016
I saw Jennifer Jason Leigh on stage in Proof, and she was wonderful. She is a marvelous actress who appears in independent films of varying quality.

"The Moment" from 2013 is just such a film. It has an interesting premise and had the potential of being truly brilliant. But it's too convoluted and misses the mark.

That's just my opinion. People on the board seem to like it, though I think it only had 1-1/2 or 2 stars on Netflix, and a 5 rating here. Not sure who's voting.

The movie goes forward and back in time. Leigh plays a photographer (named Lee), and when we first see her, she goes to the home of someone named John, calls him, and says her cameras are in his home and she needs to get in. He doesn't respond.

She gets into the house and finds that he hasn't been there in quite a while. She goes to the police to report him missing.

Then the movie starts to go back in time and into the present.

Lee ends up in a psychiatric hospital and we learn about the problems she had with John. And she meets a man also in the hospital named Peter, whom she tells her therapist looks exactly like John.

Both men are played by Martin Henderson, who could not be more handsome, and to have him play both parts was a major mistake. I realize I wasn't concentrating hard enough, but I had trouble figuring out if she was talking to John or Peter - were we in the past or the present?

Anyway, Lee is afraid that she killed John. As she tries to regain some grip on reality, we learn about her problems with her daughter and what actually happened with John. She realizes the truth about John and the truth about her troubled relationship with her daughter.

I feel that the director, Jane Weinstock, was not experienced enough to handle this kind of film, but I give her credit for taking it on. I understand, according to one review, that the people who liked it were psychiatrists or their patients. Interesting.

Jennifer Jason Leigh was something like 51 when this was made, and she looks like a woman in her thirties, and she's not heavily made up. In Proof, she was playing someone 25 and she was 40. She does a great job of playing this confused and frightened woman.

This is a psychological drama with an unsatisfying ending. I can't say I liked it. I do think it was a mistake not to cast different actors as John and Peter. It would have helped - immensely.
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