I STILL SEE YOU is a blend of a sci-fi, mystery and ghost story which focuses on the fate of a teenage girl 10 years after a cataclysmic event near her home town, which has caused "remnants", ghosts of the deceased to appear to the living on a regular basis, ostensibly without any possibility for interaction.
The movie is strong on the technical side: the direction is well-paced, the cinematography atmospheric, the acting convincing (setting aside that neither of the protagonists really looks like a teenager) and the music fits well.
Unfortunately, a weak script causes the movie to fall short of being a good one. I am not sure if the plot problems are carried over from the source novel, but here are some:
-It is alright to tell a personal story against the background of a catastrophe that killed millions, but if the story ends up involving the principals behind the cataclysm, then that exposes an incongruity in the scope which makes the whole story feel contrived.
-talking about contrived, early on, the film contrives some scare scenes involving a remnant which in the reveal toward the end turn out to be red herrings. Red herrings are okay, but deceiving the audience in a way that is not completely honest (as basically this film did in those couple scenes) just indicates a flawed script.
-Finally, the twist during the last 20 minutes has not only been done countless time before, but has to be among the dumbest in this kind of movie (Could they really not have found a more credible motivation for the villain? And why hadn't he been caught already?). And just when I thought things could not get any more contrived, the film changes the ground rules on us just so as to make everything work out in the end. The only thing missing in this Deus ex machina was God Himself appearing from a split in the sky or perhaps the depth of an ice lake (Incidentally, the climax was strongly reminiscent of that of WHAT LIES BENEATH (2000)).
This could have been a great film with a strong script. I suspect that, given that this seems to be geared toward the teenage/young adult audience, the film-makers figured the viewers would not be very discerning with the story.
I did not rate this lower because of the film's all other strengths, but the quality of the script is significantly below every other aspect of it.
The movie is strong on the technical side: the direction is well-paced, the cinematography atmospheric, the acting convincing (setting aside that neither of the protagonists really looks like a teenager) and the music fits well.
Unfortunately, a weak script causes the movie to fall short of being a good one. I am not sure if the plot problems are carried over from the source novel, but here are some:
-It is alright to tell a personal story against the background of a catastrophe that killed millions, but if the story ends up involving the principals behind the cataclysm, then that exposes an incongruity in the scope which makes the whole story feel contrived.
-talking about contrived, early on, the film contrives some scare scenes involving a remnant which in the reveal toward the end turn out to be red herrings. Red herrings are okay, but deceiving the audience in a way that is not completely honest (as basically this film did in those couple scenes) just indicates a flawed script.
-Finally, the twist during the last 20 minutes has not only been done countless time before, but has to be among the dumbest in this kind of movie (Could they really not have found a more credible motivation for the villain? And why hadn't he been caught already?). And just when I thought things could not get any more contrived, the film changes the ground rules on us just so as to make everything work out in the end. The only thing missing in this Deus ex machina was God Himself appearing from a split in the sky or perhaps the depth of an ice lake (Incidentally, the climax was strongly reminiscent of that of WHAT LIES BENEATH (2000)).
This could have been a great film with a strong script. I suspect that, given that this seems to be geared toward the teenage/young adult audience, the film-makers figured the viewers would not be very discerning with the story.
I did not rate this lower because of the film's all other strengths, but the quality of the script is significantly below every other aspect of it.