The acting in this was superb and the story was intriguing but...
possible spoilers ahead:
I had a really hard time watching the interactions between the father and daughter. He is never honest and open with the girl about why he's dressing her as a boy or why they have to hide and run. Of course no one wants to discuss the possible rape of one's child but given the really disturbing hints that there were bunkers of women being held for just that, I think it was remarkably stupid of the father not to fill his daughter in.
Also, the fool has no weapons. This is a survival situation and he has no weapon and moreover, in the one useful thing the girl learns in the whole movie (from a kind elderly man), namely how to clean and use a winchester, the father objects. Oh, he's anti gun. well, why not just serve your daughter up on a god damned plate. There is no survival without weapons, not in a situation like this. Even at the end, they don't take the winchester with them. It just blew my mind.
I also find it irritating when child characters are written so foolishly. She disobeyed his instructions to hide repeatedly, asked endless questions and while there's a time for such things, a survival situation like the kind displayed in this movie isn't it. Children are smart and resourceful, esp. at twelve and raised in that environment since practically at birth. She wouldn't be that naive.
The ending is ambiguous, which I also found incredibly irritating. I think it might be read as a girl's coming of age because in the end, the father is a whining, weeping mess and the girl is calm and in control. Their positions have switched. Still...it's left unclear as to what happens, where they will go from there and that rather ruined the movie for me (at least what the father's weapons-aversion didn't already ruin).
possible spoilers ahead:
I had a really hard time watching the interactions between the father and daughter. He is never honest and open with the girl about why he's dressing her as a boy or why they have to hide and run. Of course no one wants to discuss the possible rape of one's child but given the really disturbing hints that there were bunkers of women being held for just that, I think it was remarkably stupid of the father not to fill his daughter in.
Also, the fool has no weapons. This is a survival situation and he has no weapon and moreover, in the one useful thing the girl learns in the whole movie (from a kind elderly man), namely how to clean and use a winchester, the father objects. Oh, he's anti gun. well, why not just serve your daughter up on a god damned plate. There is no survival without weapons, not in a situation like this. Even at the end, they don't take the winchester with them. It just blew my mind.
I also find it irritating when child characters are written so foolishly. She disobeyed his instructions to hide repeatedly, asked endless questions and while there's a time for such things, a survival situation like the kind displayed in this movie isn't it. Children are smart and resourceful, esp. at twelve and raised in that environment since practically at birth. She wouldn't be that naive.
The ending is ambiguous, which I also found incredibly irritating. I think it might be read as a girl's coming of age because in the end, the father is a whining, weeping mess and the girl is calm and in control. Their positions have switched. Still...it's left unclear as to what happens, where they will go from there and that rather ruined the movie for me (at least what the father's weapons-aversion didn't already ruin).