Reviews

I keep hearing how this was received as a comedy and the acting was over the top. Maybe so, I won't debate that. But this movie absolute reality if you are looking at it to the lens of an emotionally abused child. I'm a child of a mother who was very much like this, as Joan Crawford was depicted on screen. In this movie, I can assure you none of her meltdowns are over the top. Holding her children responsible for her anger is not funny. Making everyone around you have to deal with your emotional meltdowns is not funny. The movie is telling a story of a real person, CHRISTINA. The CHILD. The other adults in the room don't appreciate her emotional immaturity either, but they do what most adults do is uncomfortably bear it . She's so oblivious and inside her own stuff she can't see it. I thought they did a perfect job of depicting that type of depicting an abuser. The movie showed repeated emotional abuse and over control. I don't find any of it funny. I wonder how funny the audience would find it if they were the small child being screamed at and unable to leave their home? That's super funny, huh? Nope. Not really.

I love the two principal actors in the series and if they have been given better material they could have carried it better. When is Hollywood going to stop depicting old people as incapable of making good decisions? Their characterizations were just too difficult to suspend the disbelief for.

I really love the premise, but it's just poorly executed by giving the principles bad interpersonal skills and decision making ability.

Episode 2 would have been better served by easing us into the secondary storyline as opposed to making it primary at the beginning and having to figure out what in the world was happening. I actually checked to see if I had selected the right show! The connective tissue for the B story just wasn't compelling, it was confusing. I had to stop watching.

I love Jake Gyllenhaal, and he really does carry the movie, but just barely. It's the material. If you're going to do a ticking time clock and drip in information, you need to give us more earlier.

At the 75% mark I literally had no idea what his issues were, still! AND I started to not even care. It took way too long to get to the point or to give us any real information to make us care about the character.

It's only in the last 10 minutes of the entire movie that you begin to understand what his deep emotional problems are. It's too little too late. They ask the viewer to invest quite a bit of time for very little payoff.

Above average music score, I'll give you that. I Shazamed my way through the entire series.

As for the story, they really could have used a good developmental editor. It suffers from pointless and drawn out characterizations that don't move the story ahead an iota. You've got to give us some balance!

At one point. I really didn't even care about yet another new character I had to learn about with absolutely nothing happening with the invasion...sheesh!

The premise is super interesting, I just wish they had focused more on moving the actual plot along faster.

I appreciate this documentary's attempt to explain cumulative childhood trauma and shed light on its effects. The testimony of the father's friends are completely consistent with what it would be like to be a scapegoat child. The abusive behavior is hidden from all but the child. Everybody is surprised to learn what is happening, that's the point. It's called coercive power and control and a child has no psychological defenses against it.

Dissociating emotions in order to survive is a hallmark of childhood trauma symptomology, and every level of law enforcement and psychological help that deals with violence and victims, should be versed in what it looks like. It is one of the most misunderstood psychological concepts, including by most psychologists, as it is not taught even at the graduate level other than in the most cursory way.

How to be trauma-informed is going to become ever increasingly important in this complex world of ours. It's time we start understanding when someone's affect is completely flat and they're unable to tell their own stories about their own lives, you're looking at something complex, and it just could be that it's a childhood trauma victim in front of you, and not a stone cold killer. The uninformed attitudes of some of these law enforcement professionals was highly upsetting to watch. Let's become more trauma-informed, shall we?

I enjoyed the premise and the dialogue: two strangers meeting at a grave moment in time, both coming to grips with an uncertain future.. I especially enjoyed the reference to many people not believing it was about to happen. Reality bubbles are inconvenient when real life intrudes. The prescription is connection and honesty. I think these writers conveyed that message very well..

I'm a fan, but this is a disaster. It's just a smattering of stand-alone scenes strung together depicting the beginnings of Elton John's career. There's no dramatic tension; it fails to take you anywhere. It's like a really bad Mama Mia. Plus, the timeline for the songs he wrote with Bernie Taupin are all wrong. I guess you can just call it a "fantasy" and then you don't need to worry about silly things like accuracy.

What a waste of $4.99 for the online rental.

Using a documentary-styled episode is the absolute laziest way to convey to the viewers the character's motivations. What a disappointing episode. Show us, don't tell us!

Season 4 has really failed to capture my attention. How did the writers manage to make me not care at all if Will and Natalie ever get together? I used to love this show, but the writing has really bottomed out. They've taken the show away from what they do best: medical drama.

First, there's this ridiculous storyline about Will and the gangsters that's so over the top it's almost comedic. Other characters are endlessly fighting and breaking up. Character drama as the primary story driver works for Gray's Anatomy, but they know how to write a character. Chicago Med characters have become so one dimensional, they're just annoying.

One exception is the actor Oliver Platt. He's just exceptional in anything he does. He inhabits his role, and he's what has kept me watching.

This is a one-note plot, full of wooden characters and cops that lack any critical thinking skills.

The protagonist acts so irrationally, the cops possess a "who cares" attitude, and the plot line strains to add enough manufactured pressure to make her actions seem reasonable under the circumstances.

There's no character development and very sparse backstory. I don't normally mind the back story parsesd out, but only if the characters are interesting enough to watch.

This whole thing just falls flat, and progresses through the plot arc predictably.

Wow... not much to say except it was unoriginal, unscary, and filled with ridiculous overdone tropes. Waste of time.

This utterly uninspiring movie left me inspired to do one thing: write my first review on IMDb.

I was pretty excited by the premise of the movie, but by 10 minutes in, I realized that it wasn't going to take me anywhere but to the medicine cabinet for some Excedrin.

It's hard to know where to start in describing this cinematic train wreck. First, there was the camera work. Frenetic, bobbing, jerking back and forth, it gave the impression of two college students filming a documentary, and a bad one at that.

Then there was the dialog. In many places it just went on too long. Pointless long scenes that didn't advance the story or even appear to have meaning.

I'm astounded and I'm not quite sure how they did this, but despite the seemingly compelling subject matter, I managed to get through the film without connecting to even one of the characters. You are just never drawn into the story, the characters, or anything else. It's like this movie fails to get you to care.

Basically, I felt like I was watching a bad amateur documentary. It meandered, stalled in places, failed to connect, and had no discernible message. Just "splat". "Here's our story, make something of it." Or not.

I didn't.