vicky-movies Reviews

Burning Body (2023)

Cautionary tale

[9/10 · 3 January 2024]

The moral of this story is simple: keep your peepers in your sockets and your hormones in check when you spot something yummy. Especially if you're stuck in a crappy relationship that's going nowhere. It's better to dump your partner nicely before you hop into another sack. Otherwise, you'll end up in a sticky situation that will become hard to escape.

The actors nailed it. I was so mad at the female lead for being such a dumb-dumb. ...... The acting was that good!!! The director was on point. (duh. It was a true story. How hard could it be .. :D) It's hilarious how this mini series proves that "truth is weirder than fiction". I say mini series because there's no way they can make more seasons. The real people this series is based on are locked up for a very very long time. I might actually be dead when they are released. I'm 45, by the way.

Close Quarters (2020)

Life is tough

[7/10 · 3 April 2021]

A husband and wife are trying to have a baby but after numerous attempts it's revealed that the husband is infertile. Husband wants to adopt a child but wife wants to give birth using donor sperm. They opt for artificial insemination which fails and due to the high cost of the procedure, they cannot afford another. Since the wife is so keen on giving birth to her own baby, the husband chooses a colleague and concocts a plan to get his wife naturally impregnated by this new guy. This is when things get complicated and his life/wife will never be the same again.

A melodramatic film that explores the repercussions of such a situation. The story isn't glittery, but primitive and crude. The film touches several subjects like intimacy, helplessness, trust, female choice of companionship, natural connection between expecting parents, male bonding/competition, but what the film really excels in is its examination of the fragility of relationships and their breaking points. At times the movie is hard to watch, but the characters hold your interest and drag you into their lives.

The actors playing the three main characters do a very good job. The direction is spot on. It's a good watch if you like films that depict uncomfortable circumstances and raw emotions ...... and alas life is tough!

Wild Roses (2017)

Making a wrong, right.

[7/10 · 23 March 2021]

A film about a woman whose husband works in a foreign country. He spends months or even years away from his family. Together they have a pre-teen daughter and a toddler son. The geographical distance between the husband and wife has created a rift in their relationship. In the absence of her husband she starts an affair with a teenage boy from the same village and becomes pregnant. She moves away from her children in order to give birth in a hospital but she has to give up the baby for adoption as her husband is about to return soon.

Adultery and it's ramification are vividly portrayed in this story. The stress and guilt that corrodes the wife's conscience is beautifully shown. She has been unfaithful both to her family as well as to the new born baby. She will make wrongs even when she makes one thing right. Her dilemma about what to keep and what to give up is the undercurrent of the film. She stands to lose something with what ever decision she makes, and eventually lives will be broken; her current family's or the new born illegitimate baby's.

The lead actress is brilliant in the role of the cheating wife. Kudos to the child actor playing her daughter. The film is like a dormant volcano which erupts near the end.

Red (IV) (2020)

Six year old daughter becomes collateral damage of an unhappy marriage.

[5/10 · 20 January 2021]

I have seen a few films that have explored this particular theme of a spouse stuck in an unhappy marriage, starts an affair with an ex- lover and abandons little children because they realise they don't want to spend a millisecond of the rest of their life with their current spouse. The emphasis being more about the realisation of hate for their current spouse rather than the rekindled romance with the ex lover.

In this film it's the wife who is going through all these motions and by the end I really felt bad for the little daughter. The husband deserved every ounce of the treatment he got, but the way the wife left the little daughter was ruthless. The little girl kept crying, pleading with the mother not to leave her. The mother looks at the girl, holds her hands for a few seconds and without uttering a single word walks away, leaving the crying little girl. The mother could have at least said something comforting to her six year old daughter.

Leaving a controlling and unappreciative spouse for a new lover is understandable, but when one shares children (especially ones that are as little as six years old) with that person, some decisions must be made with a level head and not on impulse, because the lives of the parents directly impact the children, and they (the kids) without any fault of theirs are the ones that are the most effected by the separation.

The actors did a good job, but I found the movie was 15 minutes too long. The climax was dragged as the director tried to neatly tie everything up, but I felt an open ending would have really helped the movie.

The Milky Way (2015)

Unsatisfactory

[5/10 · 22 September 2020]

Although the premise and the starting of the film are good and funny, the situations created by the writer to move the story forward are dull and uninteresting. Halfway through the film, when the protagonist encounters a life changing event, the scenarios that follow are frustrating and disappointing. As a viewer, I lost interest in the movie at this point and as the film reached its climax, I wasn't bothered about the final outcome.

Bad Boy (2020)

o brother where art thou

[4/10 · 26 August 2020]

This movie had potential if the younger brother's character had a meatier role. After about halfway through the film his character is just used to fill up the set with a handful of irrelevant dialogues. The conflict and chemistry between the two siblings was just beginning to build up, when the makers decided to give more importance to uninteresting characters and situations, thus completely changing the course of the film, making it dull and unengaging.

Przemiany (2003)

Monogamy .. Bye Bye!

[5/10 · 20 August 2020]

Three sisters; first one is a single mother, the second one is about to get married and the third is married but childless. The child belonging to the single mother sister is a result of an affair between her and the husband of the childless sister. The whole family keeps it a secret from the betrayed sister/wife but she somehow finds out the truth. The betrayed sister/wife starts an affair with the boyfriend of the the sister who is about to get married and becomes pregnant in the process. The boyfriend dumps the sister he was supposed to get married to. In the end the betrayed sister/wife and the boyfriend of the sister that was supposed to get married becomes a couple.

What a story!

Dia Seis (2016)

I hope I never meet a woman like Carmen

[1/10 · 16 July 2020]

This is a cold film devoid of a soul, about a confused wife (Carmen), a helpless husband (Joaquin) and his spineless best friend (Pablo). I don't know what the writers had in mind while writing this story. The only logical conclusion I can come to is that they must really hate a guy named "Joaquin" in real life.

Carmen and Pablo fall in love but for reasons unknown she marries Joaquin. After marriage Carmen keeps seeing Pablo behind Joaquins back. Then one day Carmen is diagnosed with a terminal illness. Husband does everything possible to support wife but she elopes with Pablo, and Joaquin is clueless as to where she disappeared.......!?!

The characters of Carmen and Pablo are EVIL. Their decisions/indecisions like acid, corrodes Joaquin's life slowly as he becomes an unsuspecting doomed lab rat in Carmen and Pablo's toxic relationship experiment.

Far from the Sea (2015)

Back to where it all started

[2/10 · 4 July 2020]

The film is based on a tragedy that changes the life of an eight year old girl forever. She grows up, gets married (People like her should never get married), has a little boy, becomes a doctor but she still can't lead a normal life, the pain of what happened 27 years ago refuses to let go of her. Finally fate gives her a chance to mend some parts of her broken life, but she handled things miserably, leaving her son in the same circumstances (or even worse) she was in 27years ago.

I Am Love (2009)

Self discovery galore morphing into selfishness

[5/10 · 29 June 2020]

Sometimes a story can use some selflessness and this one almost did it. The over dramatic climax just made it worse. I can totally understand the mother's plight but the way she went about it was idiotic. Plus a little bit of empathy for the dead sons pregnant girlfriend would have been welcomed. She was just abandoned like an used toothpick, while the other characters were busy basking in awe/resentment of the "coming of age" girl (Tilda Swinton).

7 Days (2016)

A wedding, an affair and a break up.

[5/10 · 28 June 2020]

1. The wedding - The two protagonist (strangers in the beginning) spend 7 days together in a beautiful island to prepare for a wedding. The bride is the actress's best friend, the groom is the actors's brother.

2. An affair - The two protagonist hit it off a few hours after meeting. (The actress is already in a 15 year old relationship with some other dude)

3. A break up - With whom does the actress break up? ...... The dude she spent 7 days or the dude she spent 15 years?

THE END