Movie Reviews

• Title: The Worst Person in the World
• IMDb: link

If there’s a weakness for me in writer/director Joachim Trier‘s The Worst Person in the World it’s that I never come to love the lead character of Julie (Renate Reinsve) nearly as much as the writer nor the characters who cross her path. Don’t get me wrong, Reinsve is terrific here in the role of a woman who abandons careers and relationships at the drop of a hat while searching blindly for something she can never quite articulate. I’m never won over to root for or against Julie’s choices; I’m simply along for the ride.

It’s in the small moments of Julie stumbling through life, largely without any self-reflection or regard to more than the moment, that the movie provides some of its most memorable scenes, such as an unexpected slow-motion sequence that highlights the delight of potential new love versus that which been worn down with age.

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• Title: The Power of the Dog
• IMDb: link

Sometimes a movie just doesn’t work for you. I didn’t hate director Jane Champion‘s The Power of the Dog but I’ll admit to being underwhelmed by the critical darling so many are quick to praise. Yes, it has a strong performance by Benedict Cumberbatch and some lovely scenery but it’s also saddled with a predictable plot and a host of single-note characters whom I never became invested in.  In fact, on my first viewing, the film literally put me to sleep.

Our leads are Benedict Cumberbatch as rough-and-tumble rancher Phil Burbank (the mean one), Jesse Plemons as his more genteel brother George (the bland one), Kirsten Dunst as inn owner and George’s new wife Rose (the female one), and Kodi Smit-McPhee as Rose’s nearly full-grown son Peter (the creepy one). The plot mainly involves Phil acting horribly to everyone and the eventual fallout of that behavior. The payoff of which, for me, wasn’t worth the time spent to get there.

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