(2016, Dir. Garth Davis)
In Short: Google Earth will make you cry. I watched this movie over two months ago (yikes, I'm behind) on a transatlantic flight (double yikes). This was not a great plane movie, mostly due to the fact that I couldn't really hear, so the whole middle of the movie where everyone is speaking English with an Australian accent? I kind of had to guess at what was going on (no subtitles). At one point, Nicole Kidman was crying, and I had no idea why! That was not ideal. However, the lack of distinguishable audio made me pay more attention to the aspect of the movie I could easily consume--the visuals. This left me wondering--HOW on EARTH did this not win the Oscar for Best Cinematography? If you're reading this, chances are you know my feelings about La La Land. I adore it. La La Land is a pretty movie, for sure, but every piece of Lion is drop-dead gorgeous from start to finish. And not only does it look fantastic, but the visual style was important to the story. Due to the fact that the plot of Lion jumps around in time a little bit, the visuals had to indicate those differences in order to make the story easy to follow. There couldn't be discrepancies, though--it all had to flow together as a cohesive piece, and it certainly did. That was really done right. On the flip side--this movie has a mega slump in the middle (like many movies do). Sunny Pawar is so utterly compelling as young Saroo that when Saroo grows up, you miss his younger self. Don't get me wrong, Dev Patel is great! There's just something to be desired in the way the story is told through the middle. The whole angsty, anti-social Google Earth-ing bit gets kind of old kind of fast. I was also confused by Rooney Mara's role--it's too large to be a cameo, but too inconsequential to really affect the story that much. And why is she on the poster? She's hardly in the movie! Maybe if I had been able to hear I would understand. Oh well. I really liked this movie, but I think it deserves a rewatch, especially now that it's on Netflix. Mostly, I'm excited to see what Sunny Pawar is going to do in the future--that is one talented child!
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AuthorEileen here, writing reviews for film class. Archives
April 2018
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