Under the Silver Lake

Kinda makes me sad that this film could've been phenomenal if it was more considerate to the casual viewer. Bittersweet because it's great that filmmakers are able to make movies with little to no creative interference, but sometimes it's for the best. I'll start with what I like: this film has style for days. The lighting, production design, stilted characters were all mesmerizing. What I didn't: it felt meandering, bloated, and ultimately pointless. I know there's the "that's the point" argument to counter my "it was pointless" point, but when does "that's the point" become a cop out? I do think this film will garner an audience, but if it were just a bit more orthodox, it would've found that audience instantly.

Quite a different experience, which is hard to say about films in recent years. Takes a while to get going but worth the wait

I was kind of surprised by this movie experience. I just came back from sneak preview and the movie still lingers in my mind. I love Andrew Garfield, his performance was believable and I think he's one one of the best rising stars of Hollywood. I also loved his work in "Breathe", great movie, make sure you check it out.

The storyline is a bit weird, and it's pretty much centered around Andrews character, so the movie felt a bit small to me, but Andrew performance makes up for it big time. I also loved the nudity in this movie. I would describe this movie as playful, curious, funny and authentic. This is not the usual Hollywood crap, it's quite different, I had no idea where the story was going, which is a good thing because it kept me hooked and that doesn't happen to me very often anymore. I truly had a great time. It's not for everyone I think but if you like semi thriller/detective/humor/absurdity kind of movies, we'll get yourself a bucket of popcorn and have fun!

(English is not my native language)

This movie has too much and not enough.

Too much length, too many plot threads, too many characters, too many wanna-be-argute references, too many unresolved nodes. Sadly, not enough meaning.

As other reviewers noted, it tries hard to be Mulholland Drive and Donnie Darko, but it falls short of expectations, especially in the uncompelling ending.

My son (who liked it) tried to convince me to see some deeper metaphorical level, i.e. One which would be delivering some harsh criticism of Hollywood's alleged many sins. Sorry, I don't buy it: if such was the intent, then arguably the implementation defeated the purpose, ending up guilty of these very same sins.

It's not all bad: the acting is OK, as well as the photography and the cinematography. Spotting the many references is fun at first, to quickly lose interest.

To me, the real problem is the erratic, self-indulgent direction, seemingly unable to convey a meaningful consistency to the movie, a compelling raison d'être that would and should have made this movie memorable rather than a disappointing sequence of fragments. Lots of dots, unconvincingly connected. All in all, a lost opportunity.

Sorry, even though I wanted to like this movie (or possibly _because_ of that) I just cannot recommend it.

There is much here to enjoy in this likeable neo-noirish/dreamlike offering from David Robert Mitchell. It looks good throughout, has plenty of surprises, some surreal touches and generally a good feeling. At some point after halfway in begins to dawn on the viewer that it is going to be some achievement to resolve all the various and varied elements that have unfolded. Unfortunately (or just maybe fortunately) this does not seem the intention of Mitchell and even more bizarre and unresolved issues are brought up in the file stages. It is perhaps advisable then to not go into this expecting the 'detective' to solve the mystery of the missing girl or the dead dogs or the fantastic caves or the secret code, but to just enjoy the moments.