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Reviews
Light of My Life (2019)
disappointing
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).
Why Him? (2016)
loved the movie until the end
I'm not much for comedy but my husband wanted to watch this and it had a great cast so I relented. I found it really really funny from start to almost finish. Each character has his or her moment but Keegan Michael Key stole the show as far as I'm concerned (and I found it quite brilliant the way his character's most humorous scenes always had something just a bit scatological about them. It's been my experience that German cussing and humor tends to be on the scatological side and his character Gustav is supposed to be German. :) )I loved it all the way until the very end when the writers decided to insert a bunch of feminist nonsense.
Here's where the spoiler comes in.
At the end of the movie Laird proposes and Stephanie turns him down, deciding to stay with him but go back to school. She goes on a bit about how she isn't property to be passed around from father to boyfriend all because the earnest but awkward Laird asked for her father's permission before proposing. No room in feminism for old fashioned family oriented courtesy. I almost walked out at that point but I wanted to see how it ended (and while I think it great the character decided to go back to school, that could have happened without her refusing to marry Laird.). God for bid we have a traditional happy ending in a romantic comedy. This pretty much ruined the movie for me.
On the positive side, when the father and Laird finally duke it out, that fight is awesome.