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Reviews
I'm Not Here (2017)
Clichés galore, but worth the watch
J. K. Simmons: as with most of his work - fantastic. The lack of lines showed once again, he's a proper actor. His theater experience shines bright in a role like this. Also, as his wife was the director, I can't imagine him not putting everything he had into it.
The child actors were also fantastic. Both of them added a needed dynamic to their family structures, that was both beautiful and heartbreaking - in equal measure.
I felt like I was watching a play. The structure, scenes, dialogue - everything. However, I usually thoroughly enjoy the theater. With this, it unfortunately fell a bit flat for me.
The majority of time, it felt like a smattering of clichés, which at times can be a smidge boring for the viewer. If you've read or seen enough storylines, it's usually been done before.....which many of this has been.
At other times, it had a bit of a therapy read or diary of a director feel. Hey, that's ok, just a little heads up before a mini trauma-dump would be cool.
There were certainly opportunities to get creative (example; using extremely bright color pops/schemes during the earlier childhood flashbacks, then gradually fade as the dynamic began to deteriorate), but perhaps the flat dialogue meshed better with the coinciding dialogue.
With all that being said, I don't agree with some of the professional reviews. They sounded almost personally offended by the movie, which is comical. It wasn't THAT bad.
Was it a bit cliché? Yes. Could it have been a pinch more creative? Yes, I believe so. Was it perhaps a personal passion project? Probably. Do I regret watching it? No.
I believe it was Ms. Schumacher's directorial debut, so I'm choosing to give her some grace. I don't expect anyone to be perfect on their first try at anything.