This movie steers into interesting territory covered in films like Black Swan, obsession with perfection, the disciplined, somber life of those dedicated to the classical arts, how crazy competition can be, the dark side of the American Dream and all that. But the film, while first serving up a high brow ambience through classical music and fancy upper class settings, ultimately just feels like a stack of cheap burgers with too much fat, on a stomach that was hoping for something a lot more nutritious.
It just keeps throwing one crazy (and rather lazy) twist at you after another with little conviction and makes less and less sense. First we get to see a lesbian fling. We don't really get to know the characters all that well and it doesn't take long before they just get it on, but OK. At this point the film is still fairly enjoyable because it can still go anywhere. Then there is the virus...a bit confusing, suddenly you think this is a virus film. Then a hand gets chopped off...and after that it just gets more and more sick at the expense of believability. It throws heavy subject matter at you, about a master-apprentice relationship with sexual abuse, but deals with it in such a tasteless and crude way that you can't really care. And the forgiveness granted here to a psychopathic girl that just ruined another girl's entire life is just laughable. Even if these girls want to stay in their abusive relationship, an eye for an eye to settle the score first would make more sense (or should I say hand for a hand). And the rape scene with the stump was just too much.
Really, this could have been a great film if it hadn't derailed into gory territory. Don't get me wrong, I like gore in certain films, but here it just didn't fit. It should have focused more on a psychologically abusive master-apprentice relationship rather than dive mindlessly some a run of the mill me-too perversion. It's just crappy and distasteful writing, as if a number of heavy, serious topics found itself in the wrong type of movie.
The ending has almost one redeeming quality: The Chromatics covering Petals...but it just doesn't fit into the film either!
It just keeps throwing one crazy (and rather lazy) twist at you after another with little conviction and makes less and less sense. First we get to see a lesbian fling. We don't really get to know the characters all that well and it doesn't take long before they just get it on, but OK. At this point the film is still fairly enjoyable because it can still go anywhere. Then there is the virus...a bit confusing, suddenly you think this is a virus film. Then a hand gets chopped off...and after that it just gets more and more sick at the expense of believability. It throws heavy subject matter at you, about a master-apprentice relationship with sexual abuse, but deals with it in such a tasteless and crude way that you can't really care. And the forgiveness granted here to a psychopathic girl that just ruined another girl's entire life is just laughable. Even if these girls want to stay in their abusive relationship, an eye for an eye to settle the score first would make more sense (or should I say hand for a hand). And the rape scene with the stump was just too much.
Really, this could have been a great film if it hadn't derailed into gory territory. Don't get me wrong, I like gore in certain films, but here it just didn't fit. It should have focused more on a psychologically abusive master-apprentice relationship rather than dive mindlessly some a run of the mill me-too perversion. It's just crappy and distasteful writing, as if a number of heavy, serious topics found itself in the wrong type of movie.
The ending has almost one redeeming quality: The Chromatics covering Petals...but it just doesn't fit into the film either!