I really enjoyed 'The Ones Below' and was almost willing to give it a '9' rating, when I suddenly realised there was a glaring and unforgivable plot hole ruining the premise of the movie, or more importantly its twist. Usually I'm very forgiving when it comes to plot holes, because I'm pretty good at finding a way to justify them in some context and not allow it to destroy the experience for me. On this occasion though I simply could not do that. (SPOILERS) When the twist at the end is revealed that it was never actually the baby being thrown into the river, it makes no sense that no one has actually gone in searching and worked out there is no baby and launched a massive search. It would take the police literally 5 minutes, by the look of that river, to go in there and find whatever bundle was actually thrown in (I suspect the cat). In fact I kept expecting the father to dive in right there on the spot. You'd have to wouldn't you?
It's a shame that a very poor and lazy piece of writing can take so much away from an otherwise great film. There was a lot of good elements here. There was the mystery side of things, where we were never entirely sure of character's motives and whether things were as they seemed or not. There was the dramatic side of things, with people genuinely dealing with loss and depression. And there was a lot of intensity in particular scenes, mostly created by some excellent acting by the main four actors in the cast. Putting aside the writing flaws in the ending, I did like it as a twist. It's not the most blindsiding of plot twists (because a part of you suspects this the entire film) but it still works. Definitely a film worth a look.
It's a shame that a very poor and lazy piece of writing can take so much away from an otherwise great film. There was a lot of good elements here. There was the mystery side of things, where we were never entirely sure of character's motives and whether things were as they seemed or not. There was the dramatic side of things, with people genuinely dealing with loss and depression. And there was a lot of intensity in particular scenes, mostly created by some excellent acting by the main four actors in the cast. Putting aside the writing flaws in the ending, I did like it as a twist. It's not the most blindsiding of plot twists (because a part of you suspects this the entire film) but it still works. Definitely a film worth a look.