In "Winter Solstice" the Winter family doesn't know how to deal with the loss of the only woman in the house: the wife and mother of two brothers. Anthony LaPaglia is Jim, a widower dealing with some constant changes of his two teenage sons (played by Aaron Stanford and Mark Webber). One of them wants to move to another town because he thinks his life in going nowhere and he wants to find a sense of direction in the world, even if that means leave his girlfriend (Michelle Monaghan) behind. The other one is a self-destructive character whose prior objective is none, attending classes in the high school but not doing much, getting negative grades.
In a place where nothing changes, nothing is answered and some situations are infatuating a glow of kindness appears in the form of Molly (Allison Janney) a new neighbor taking care of a house around the Winter family and we as audience are desperately hoping that she and Jim be involved soon. In one of the most awkward and funny moments of the film Jim throws the mattress and pillows of the brothers in the garden forcing them to sleep outside of the house just because they didn't attend in Molly's house for a dinner. He did that by angry, he didn't want to be alone with another woman, after 5 years without knowing another one except his deceased wife.
This is another example of the so-called Independent Film book of rules (if there is one actually). Pick some good actors; deliver to them the shortest lines possible to talk on screen; make sure that the soundtrack of your film is an morose acoustic guitar; go film in a small town; and throw lots and lots of slow pace moments without answers, thousands of questions and no ending; and then you got a movie. Good one? Unfortunately no. I've seen a lot of similar films lately and they can only do one thing: make me bored!
Despite the efforts of the ensemble casting this movie doesn't inspired me in anything, and it only showed that real life is boring, pointless, with some aggressive moments and no reason at all. In some points the movie worked brilliantly in showing the lack of communication between people, in other moments it was just deplorable, e.g. the moment where Molly wants to return something she borrowed from Jim and the son played by Mark Webber keeps looking strangely at her, not asking questions at her; she's very polite and he and his friend are too much in the defensive. Normal teenagers behave like that? Well, maybe. But that moment was too forced.
The atmosphere of boredom is present in all moments except when Allison Janney is in scene but sadly her character doesn't appear too much. And the excessive focus on the teenage characters rather than the adults makes this film a little bit pointless and diminished considering that the pain that LaPaglia's character suffered is more important to the story than the teens grieve.
The Winters family doesn't deal with the loss in family. There's no dealing with neighbors and teachers and the girlfriend. I mean that's what happens in real life. People just don't talk and everything is invisible to the eyes of those around who suffer of something. In movies just like literature characters can't use "masks", they need to show his reality to the audience, explain just a little why this is happening to them and why they act of that particular way.
Everything was a mystery in Josh Sternfeld's film, nothing moves, people fight but they don't share their love, hopes and fears with no one even with its audience. And that's a problem in terms of screenplay. "Ordinary People" might be more melodramatic and more depressive than this film but at least it goes to somewhere, and we got some answers, and a possible solution. If you're looking for some answers to your life after experiencing something similar it's gonna be just like the Nazi soup in "Seinfeld": "No Soup For You!" 5/10
In a place where nothing changes, nothing is answered and some situations are infatuating a glow of kindness appears in the form of Molly (Allison Janney) a new neighbor taking care of a house around the Winter family and we as audience are desperately hoping that she and Jim be involved soon. In one of the most awkward and funny moments of the film Jim throws the mattress and pillows of the brothers in the garden forcing them to sleep outside of the house just because they didn't attend in Molly's house for a dinner. He did that by angry, he didn't want to be alone with another woman, after 5 years without knowing another one except his deceased wife.
This is another example of the so-called Independent Film book of rules (if there is one actually). Pick some good actors; deliver to them the shortest lines possible to talk on screen; make sure that the soundtrack of your film is an morose acoustic guitar; go film in a small town; and throw lots and lots of slow pace moments without answers, thousands of questions and no ending; and then you got a movie. Good one? Unfortunately no. I've seen a lot of similar films lately and they can only do one thing: make me bored!
Despite the efforts of the ensemble casting this movie doesn't inspired me in anything, and it only showed that real life is boring, pointless, with some aggressive moments and no reason at all. In some points the movie worked brilliantly in showing the lack of communication between people, in other moments it was just deplorable, e.g. the moment where Molly wants to return something she borrowed from Jim and the son played by Mark Webber keeps looking strangely at her, not asking questions at her; she's very polite and he and his friend are too much in the defensive. Normal teenagers behave like that? Well, maybe. But that moment was too forced.
The atmosphere of boredom is present in all moments except when Allison Janney is in scene but sadly her character doesn't appear too much. And the excessive focus on the teenage characters rather than the adults makes this film a little bit pointless and diminished considering that the pain that LaPaglia's character suffered is more important to the story than the teens grieve.
The Winters family doesn't deal with the loss in family. There's no dealing with neighbors and teachers and the girlfriend. I mean that's what happens in real life. People just don't talk and everything is invisible to the eyes of those around who suffer of something. In movies just like literature characters can't use "masks", they need to show his reality to the audience, explain just a little why this is happening to them and why they act of that particular way.
Everything was a mystery in Josh Sternfeld's film, nothing moves, people fight but they don't share their love, hopes and fears with no one even with its audience. And that's a problem in terms of screenplay. "Ordinary People" might be more melodramatic and more depressive than this film but at least it goes to somewhere, and we got some answers, and a possible solution. If you're looking for some answers to your life after experiencing something similar it's gonna be just like the Nazi soup in "Seinfeld": "No Soup For You!" 5/10