Synapses didn't quite connect. Lovely and stylish looks. Something missing. Left me hungry.
Pretty film. Gorgeous styling, not just evoking, but recreating a noir genre and capturing an honest, studied essence of the Los Angeles of yore. Interesting, but the film captures Los Angeles more than 'Hollywood'; but at its core, we found that there was something essentially lacking in the composition of characters we are introduced to in this flick.
After much consideration, we've determined that while de Palma fans will love this picture, we found that in the end there was no redemption. All the loose threads tie up, but there is no sympathetic character, we don't care about anyone, and there is no overwhelming humanity we were able to relate to in any single character's story.
So we left the screening thinking yeah? Right? That was it? Since we didn't read the novel, we're not sure whether the film was true to it or not, but while the iconic Black Dahlia story is an enduring Hollywood mystery, it's somewhat secondary, symbolic and iconic in terms of its position in this film's story.
One great performance: Fiona Shaw as the rich man's wife. Genius. And Hillary Swank ain't half-bad as the femme fatale. But at the end of the day we found Josh Hartnett about 5 years too young for us to completely buy his story. We felt that he just didn't bring enough maturity to the table. Scarlett J. provides her standard issue intelligent-but-somehow- flatlining-blonde aesthetic, she's stunning as usual.
The art direction and color tones of this film were the stars as far as we were concerned. This film is totally artful, but still left us hungry. Not bad, but gosh darn, coulda been better. Ya know?
Pretty film. Gorgeous styling, not just evoking, but recreating a noir genre and capturing an honest, studied essence of the Los Angeles of yore. Interesting, but the film captures Los Angeles more than 'Hollywood'; but at its core, we found that there was something essentially lacking in the composition of characters we are introduced to in this flick.
After much consideration, we've determined that while de Palma fans will love this picture, we found that in the end there was no redemption. All the loose threads tie up, but there is no sympathetic character, we don't care about anyone, and there is no overwhelming humanity we were able to relate to in any single character's story.
So we left the screening thinking yeah? Right? That was it? Since we didn't read the novel, we're not sure whether the film was true to it or not, but while the iconic Black Dahlia story is an enduring Hollywood mystery, it's somewhat secondary, symbolic and iconic in terms of its position in this film's story.
One great performance: Fiona Shaw as the rich man's wife. Genius. And Hillary Swank ain't half-bad as the femme fatale. But at the end of the day we found Josh Hartnett about 5 years too young for us to completely buy his story. We felt that he just didn't bring enough maturity to the table. Scarlett J. provides her standard issue intelligent-but-somehow- flatlining-blonde aesthetic, she's stunning as usual.
The art direction and color tones of this film were the stars as far as we were concerned. This film is totally artful, but still left us hungry. Not bad, but gosh darn, coulda been better. Ya know?