This is a movie that is a little difficult for me to describe because there are aspects of the film that I think are stunning and brilliant, but I also think that the movie jumps the shark in a few areas and the last 40 minutes of the film were... well... awful. Not sure how else to describe the last chunk of the movie.
The Good: The acting, cinematography, dialogue, and just about everything in this movie is well executed. Every scene gets across exactly what it intends the audience to feel at just the right time. There were many emotional scenes throughout the movie that had me tearing up a little. In terms of filmmaking, this movie is one of the best movies I've seen in such a long time.
The Bad: This movie is depressing to a degree that almost feels counter-productive and actually hurts its plot a little bit. Some scenes that are supposed to be emotional, anxious, and terrible start to feel like melodrama and misery-porn (especially in the last fourth of the movie).
It might seem biased of me, but that last chunk of the movie is really what killed the movie for me. It started to feel more contrived, miserable, and angsty to a degree that didn't feel like it fit in with the character and it felt like misery for the sake of misery. Here are my main issues (which goes into spoilers):
The crux of the final act of the movie deals with our protagonist forgiving her son's murderer because she believes that it is important to forgive even the worst of sinners based on her faith in Jesus Christ. Surprisingly, the murderer actually has become a Christian as well and realizes that he committed a terrible crime and that he will forever be praying for her based on the suffering he has brought on her.
What is the protagonist's response? She becomes an atheist, suicidal, tries to have sex with a reverend (and he goes along with it even though that is shown to be out of character with him), and is constantly trying to make God angry and does everything in her power to make sure God knows that she is fighting against him. These aren't really issues if they were in the second act, but the movie has a really weird reverse character arc that I don't think I've ever really seen before in a movie. She goes from being happy, to miserable, to being happy and learning to move on with life, to becoming highly self-destructive, bitter, and a psychopath. The end of the movie is just her being miserable, paranoid, frightened, and unable to show any love to anyone even though everyone is going out of their way to show her love.
The reason why this feels contrived to me is from first-hand experiences with people who have faced similar situations, and I haven't met anyone undergo a reverse character arc like when they have had to forgive murderers. I used to grow in a missionary oriented church as a kid and I knew people who had their entire families murdered and we able to learn to forgive and even eventually turn the lives around of the people who did the most damage to them. Based on my experience, the character arc she is going through is usually the arc that everyone goes through BEFORE the forgive. Usually the depression, grief, God hatred, and atheism occur right after something terrible has happened. In all of my life, I've never witnessed a reverse arc like this.
Regardless of whatever real-life examples I have experienced, it is also rather narratively unsatisfying to just end the movie with our character being a broken husk of a human being who is unable to love or show compassion. The end of the movie is just open-ended misery with no real statement. If she were to have another reversal in character where she adapts to the situation (regardless if she stays atheistic or confirms her faith once again) then it would at least being saying something powerful. But as is, it feels a little incomplete which makes me feel like the movie is either too long or it's not long enough.
I think the movie was worth watching, but I honestly can't think of a single movie I've seen where I thought the movie destroyed all of its rewatchability in the third act. Everything that I like about this movie happens in the first hour and forty minutes. After that it's just misery porn.
The Good: The acting, cinematography, dialogue, and just about everything in this movie is well executed. Every scene gets across exactly what it intends the audience to feel at just the right time. There were many emotional scenes throughout the movie that had me tearing up a little. In terms of filmmaking, this movie is one of the best movies I've seen in such a long time.
The Bad: This movie is depressing to a degree that almost feels counter-productive and actually hurts its plot a little bit. Some scenes that are supposed to be emotional, anxious, and terrible start to feel like melodrama and misery-porn (especially in the last fourth of the movie).
It might seem biased of me, but that last chunk of the movie is really what killed the movie for me. It started to feel more contrived, miserable, and angsty to a degree that didn't feel like it fit in with the character and it felt like misery for the sake of misery. Here are my main issues (which goes into spoilers):
The crux of the final act of the movie deals with our protagonist forgiving her son's murderer because she believes that it is important to forgive even the worst of sinners based on her faith in Jesus Christ. Surprisingly, the murderer actually has become a Christian as well and realizes that he committed a terrible crime and that he will forever be praying for her based on the suffering he has brought on her.
What is the protagonist's response? She becomes an atheist, suicidal, tries to have sex with a reverend (and he goes along with it even though that is shown to be out of character with him), and is constantly trying to make God angry and does everything in her power to make sure God knows that she is fighting against him. These aren't really issues if they were in the second act, but the movie has a really weird reverse character arc that I don't think I've ever really seen before in a movie. She goes from being happy, to miserable, to being happy and learning to move on with life, to becoming highly self-destructive, bitter, and a psychopath. The end of the movie is just her being miserable, paranoid, frightened, and unable to show any love to anyone even though everyone is going out of their way to show her love.
The reason why this feels contrived to me is from first-hand experiences with people who have faced similar situations, and I haven't met anyone undergo a reverse character arc like when they have had to forgive murderers. I used to grow in a missionary oriented church as a kid and I knew people who had their entire families murdered and we able to learn to forgive and even eventually turn the lives around of the people who did the most damage to them. Based on my experience, the character arc she is going through is usually the arc that everyone goes through BEFORE the forgive. Usually the depression, grief, God hatred, and atheism occur right after something terrible has happened. In all of my life, I've never witnessed a reverse arc like this.
Regardless of whatever real-life examples I have experienced, it is also rather narratively unsatisfying to just end the movie with our character being a broken husk of a human being who is unable to love or show compassion. The end of the movie is just open-ended misery with no real statement. If she were to have another reversal in character where she adapts to the situation (regardless if she stays atheistic or confirms her faith once again) then it would at least being saying something powerful. But as is, it feels a little incomplete which makes me feel like the movie is either too long or it's not long enough.
I think the movie was worth watching, but I honestly can't think of a single movie I've seen where I thought the movie destroyed all of its rewatchability in the third act. Everything that I like about this movie happens in the first hour and forty minutes. After that it's just misery porn.