A top notch cast accompanies Colin Farrell in this one. It has some really fine production value for what must've been a small budget. There are some powerful, emotional moments that, though everything has been shown before in war, scratch some new surface and find some new wounds.
All the things that worked really well though are in constant balance with the kinda vague and unexplored emotional moments that push so much of the plot along.
For example, after the explosion is finally revealed, and we learn Mark has been lying about what happened while in-country, the first question I wanted his wife to ask was where's David? She's shown interest in helping find David behind Mark's back, and this is the big question hanging over the story, yet she doesn't ask. She plays a complacent role here, not the critical one that would've been more natural, more interesting, and created far more tension.
It was here I realized that the character's discoveries all seem to happen while alone. This is something you can get away with in a novel, it usually works quite well, you have some space for internal monologue. But the adaptation here doesn't fill in the needed space that the book clearly created with internal monologue and those internal moments. In a movie this leaves the characters seeming disconnected, and lacking emotionally robustness or color. Internalizing in a movie works very well when done properly, as say Apocalypse Now did so perfectly. I think having another screenwriter adapt the novel, or touch it up, would've benefited greatly. I feel like the director was probably too close to it to see where his screenplay wasn't working.
The grandfather interactions and the war story vignettes. These are the high points of the movie. The baby-step in the present/flashback of the past format itself is memorable and would've been interesting to shape the whole movie around the format. As it is, the entire movie starts too late, with much of the first hour not being potent or being redundant plot that the grandfather interactions cover. The grandfather as the emotional translator and detective, this is a fascinating and dark relationship. I imagine the novelist felt on his game writing these scenes. Much more of this relationship could've been explored.
As an example of the vague, internalized moments that were not translated onto the screen-- after Mark has finally revealed what happened with David, an emotional interaction, the scene ends with an "off" moment: the grandfather shakes his head at Mark, and Mark looks vague and looks down. His internal processing is unknown. Another vague moment. Colin Farrell does great with the material he has, but it's clear the adaptation isn't there, the moment isn't captured in the screenplay.
A second example-- after the birth. The woman has become a mother and a widow on the same day. That's powerful and will shape the rest of her life. It's a well-thought out character by the novelist, yet in the movie, how could the widow be so quick and easy to forgive a few hours after she's found out her husband was killed, and she'd been lied to about for days or weeks. It's a powerful place for a person to be, not unrealistic in the grieving process, yet we don't see that transition. And that's an important relationship in the story, as Mark can't move on without her forgiveness or closure.
In the end I couldn't identify with the main character emotionally unless he was talking in flashback; there his reflections were visualized, and allowed us to experience his conflict with him.
All the things that worked really well though are in constant balance with the kinda vague and unexplored emotional moments that push so much of the plot along.
For example, after the explosion is finally revealed, and we learn Mark has been lying about what happened while in-country, the first question I wanted his wife to ask was where's David? She's shown interest in helping find David behind Mark's back, and this is the big question hanging over the story, yet she doesn't ask. She plays a complacent role here, not the critical one that would've been more natural, more interesting, and created far more tension.
It was here I realized that the character's discoveries all seem to happen while alone. This is something you can get away with in a novel, it usually works quite well, you have some space for internal monologue. But the adaptation here doesn't fill in the needed space that the book clearly created with internal monologue and those internal moments. In a movie this leaves the characters seeming disconnected, and lacking emotionally robustness or color. Internalizing in a movie works very well when done properly, as say Apocalypse Now did so perfectly. I think having another screenwriter adapt the novel, or touch it up, would've benefited greatly. I feel like the director was probably too close to it to see where his screenplay wasn't working.
The grandfather interactions and the war story vignettes. These are the high points of the movie. The baby-step in the present/flashback of the past format itself is memorable and would've been interesting to shape the whole movie around the format. As it is, the entire movie starts too late, with much of the first hour not being potent or being redundant plot that the grandfather interactions cover. The grandfather as the emotional translator and detective, this is a fascinating and dark relationship. I imagine the novelist felt on his game writing these scenes. Much more of this relationship could've been explored.
As an example of the vague, internalized moments that were not translated onto the screen-- after Mark has finally revealed what happened with David, an emotional interaction, the scene ends with an "off" moment: the grandfather shakes his head at Mark, and Mark looks vague and looks down. His internal processing is unknown. Another vague moment. Colin Farrell does great with the material he has, but it's clear the adaptation isn't there, the moment isn't captured in the screenplay.
A second example-- after the birth. The woman has become a mother and a widow on the same day. That's powerful and will shape the rest of her life. It's a well-thought out character by the novelist, yet in the movie, how could the widow be so quick and easy to forgive a few hours after she's found out her husband was killed, and she'd been lied to about for days or weeks. It's a powerful place for a person to be, not unrealistic in the grieving process, yet we don't see that transition. And that's an important relationship in the story, as Mark can't move on without her forgiveness or closure.
In the end I couldn't identify with the main character emotionally unless he was talking in flashback; there his reflections were visualized, and allowed us to experience his conflict with him.