Although I understand what the writer/director is trying to do with this debut, I just felt massively underwhelmed by the project. It also feels too lengthy and dragged out. If the stories were told a little faster and with some stronger actors, I'm sure I would have been pulled into their dark, stormy worlds.
A good start grabbed me attention wise and I wanted to know where the characters were going but there is only so many long shots of an every-day scenario you can take before it becomes something akin to looking at a photograph intently for 10 minutes when you've seen the same photo 5-times before.
The old couple were particularly poignant but the other characters didn't capture the mindset excessively or vividly. An interesting debut for someone who must have had good backing and I think it could have been snappier and shorter and still retained its gritty teeth.
Direction can, indeed, make a film as much as good acting can overhaul dodgy directing. However, 'Better Things' doesn't live up its positive title. I understand the irony/play on that title but even in the depths of reality and creeping inside the corpse of drug abuse, I wanted a lot, lot more to happen and a lot more to get me thinking about.
A good start grabbed me attention wise and I wanted to know where the characters were going but there is only so many long shots of an every-day scenario you can take before it becomes something akin to looking at a photograph intently for 10 minutes when you've seen the same photo 5-times before.
The old couple were particularly poignant but the other characters didn't capture the mindset excessively or vividly. An interesting debut for someone who must have had good backing and I think it could have been snappier and shorter and still retained its gritty teeth.
Direction can, indeed, make a film as much as good acting can overhaul dodgy directing. However, 'Better Things' doesn't live up its positive title. I understand the irony/play on that title but even in the depths of reality and creeping inside the corpse of drug abuse, I wanted a lot, lot more to happen and a lot more to get me thinking about.