Reviews

First off, McAvoy does an absolutely amazing job dealing with the multiple personalities. I mean, just fantastic work. Shame we are told there are 23, then only shown 8, but that's not his fault. Watch it just to bask in McAvoy's craft. Well, that and his hot body. (I am only human.) The problem-one of them anyway-is that the plot seems less about telling a story and more about setting up some other story. I like to refer to this as "Back to the Future 2" syndrome. This movie seems to exist solely as a segue between Unbreakable and the upcoming Glass. Even before I saw the end of the movie with Willis's cameo, as the movie was obviously wrapping up, I was asking "is that it?" I certainly don't expect all the loose ends wrapped up in the end, but can we get any explanation? Any at all? The plot has set up these really intriguing characters then done relatively little with them. No sense of closure at all. Problem two: the poster and tag line give away the big twist. He has 23 personalities and a 24th is coming. With Shyamalan's reputation for twist endings, the lack of a twist here seems... well... lazy? I don't know. Maybe I am being overly critical of Shyamalan, and he's trying to turn over a new leaf and stop us consumers from expecting it. Of course, if you don't have your gimmicky "twist" ending, what are you left with? Characterization but very little plot. Literally, you can sum up the plot in two sentences: teen girls kidnapped by man with multiple personalities; the girl with the messed-up past survives. I stand corrected. One sentence. Problem three: believability. Every story and film requires a certain level of suspending disbelief, and this film really tested my limits. I mean, the doctor knows she can stop him-she even writes a letter to no one in particular explaining this-but then doesn't stop him as he's killing her? Also, I'm no expert on DID, but I am pretty sure it doesn't work that way. The whole point of dissociative identities is they... wait for it... dissociate. They do not share memories or talk to each other. That's why, among professionals who think it exists (there's a lot of debate), it is seen as a way to cope with trauma. It is supposed to be locking memories away in a different personality so the rest can go on living. I thought we were past this Hollywooded-up version of mental illness. I guess not.

[Possible SPOILER]

I picked this film out of a used-vhs bin basically because it had Kenneth Branagh in it. I figured, how bad can it be for $2?

This movie was one of those rare surprises that keeps me going back to used-vhs bins.

The characters are interesting, the sets are visually appealing, and the casting is phenomenal--William Hurt, Blythe Danner, Madeleine Stowe, Robert Loggia, etc. The plot is a thought-provoking treatise on how far humans will go to get what they want.

Overall, definitely worth *much* more than $2!

(SPOILERS)

The first part of this movie is simply wonderful--lovely storytelling, great acting from Julie Walters and Helen Mirren especially, beautiful scenery, a lot of laughs, a little tragedy, and a whole lot of heart. You really come to empathize with these ladies, and it's a great moral that people can come together to accomplish great things if they're brave enough to take a chance.

Then something dreadful happens... The calendar takes off, changing all of the women's lives and characters. Suddenly, it's like watching an entirely different movie. Instead of the quaintness of Yorkshire, the film is brisked away to the garishness of Hollywood, and the story suddenly becomes your basic fish-out-of-water tale.

The moral of the story goes from being about bravery to the terribly over-used pessimism of "fame corrupts." The characters you really liked suddenly become catty and more interested in their publicity than their families, and they lose sight of the original point of the calendar.

The women go to Hollywood. Yay. Sure, they go on TV. Oh, joy. They meet famous people. Yeah, great, they talk to filmmakers, etc., etc. (People, we are watching the movie--we could have figured this out!)

Fortunately, the last ten minutes or so switches back to Yorkshire and regains the original tone of the film, but by then, the damage is already done.

This might be the way the *real* story played out, but I'm not watching a documentary, I'm watching a movie. This is not an art film--I want to see a focused storyline. Take a little artistic license to maintain the overall tone of the film, for crying out loud. First and foremost, keep the film in England! Sending it to Hollywood just seemed to cheapen the storyline.

Want to show how the calendar took off and made them all famous? That's fine. Want to show how the publicity went to their heads? Great. Just do it in such a way that retains the characterizations so the audience doesn't end up questioning if they even like these women.

Maintain the bravery moral by turning the popularity of the calendar into a hero's trial for all of them, and show how they came together and were made better by the experience.

In summary, it was a good idea with great acting and beautiful landscapes, but the screenplay was short at least one major re-write.

One last thing--what in the world were they thinking putting the last joke of the film on the dvd's main menu?