The film is dedicated to the memory of the mother of the director, assassinated in 2009. While that was a touching move and while the movie certainly has noble aspirations, this movie, from a purely cinematic point of view is nothing short of awful. Hilariously awful, might I add.
I won't try to sum up the plot of the film like I usually do because I couldn't for the life of me remember what it was about. One minute it's about cultural diversity in Montreal, next it's about a conflict between families in Haiti and eventually it turns into a woman becoming a fugitive from Haitian authorities. These all events all feature the same woman, and is supposedly a continuous telling of her story, but I can barely make the links between the different parts of the story.
Marie-Ange Barbancourt overacts in just about every scene she is in. She is, however, much better than all the supporting actors in this film. One I can think of right now is the judge during a court scene taking place in Haiti whose sentences feel overly written and whose intonation is even worse.
The film features some very funny moments (although they aren't intentional), such as when Marie-Ange's character visits a person and they have small talk for a minute or so before they start yelling at one another insults that I'd frankly never heard of in my life. Other scenes include Olympic medalist Bruny Surin and another actor playing some overly cartoonish cops (with a special gun handshake...yep you read that right)...I mean I can tell that the director wanted to show them as being evil, but there really are no motivations for their actions. Their actions are unexplained and do not make sense, and it's even funnier when the rookie cop starts shooting randomly in the air and his superior tells him that he's learning fast. Another scene involves demonic possession, and my question is this...why? It didn't bring anything to the story, and was never referenced again.
In short, if Quebec ever wanted to respond to Tommy Wiseau's The Room, this would have to be the movie. Studying film in college at the moment of this review, it should be noted that I haven't even talked about the film's technical problems yet. Frames that look pretty weird, sound that just lags from scene to scene (it will either just cut during dialogue or will feel way too low...one scene in particular that comes to mind is a scene in which a washing machine makes more noise than the characters talking. I cannot believe that nobody saw that during post- production)...This film is absolutely terrible.
A Final Word: A friend of mine works in a theater. He states that on Saturday, during the whole day, only one person bought a ticket. That same person got a refund 20 minutes into the movie. Yesterday, the theater was empty except for me and this friend, and another woman, who walked out after 40 minutes. That didn't matter because we didn't have to contain our laughter anymore. If anybody walked by our auditorium, they must've thought we were watching the comedy of the century.
I won't try to sum up the plot of the film like I usually do because I couldn't for the life of me remember what it was about. One minute it's about cultural diversity in Montreal, next it's about a conflict between families in Haiti and eventually it turns into a woman becoming a fugitive from Haitian authorities. These all events all feature the same woman, and is supposedly a continuous telling of her story, but I can barely make the links between the different parts of the story.
Marie-Ange Barbancourt overacts in just about every scene she is in. She is, however, much better than all the supporting actors in this film. One I can think of right now is the judge during a court scene taking place in Haiti whose sentences feel overly written and whose intonation is even worse.
The film features some very funny moments (although they aren't intentional), such as when Marie-Ange's character visits a person and they have small talk for a minute or so before they start yelling at one another insults that I'd frankly never heard of in my life. Other scenes include Olympic medalist Bruny Surin and another actor playing some overly cartoonish cops (with a special gun handshake...yep you read that right)...I mean I can tell that the director wanted to show them as being evil, but there really are no motivations for their actions. Their actions are unexplained and do not make sense, and it's even funnier when the rookie cop starts shooting randomly in the air and his superior tells him that he's learning fast. Another scene involves demonic possession, and my question is this...why? It didn't bring anything to the story, and was never referenced again.
In short, if Quebec ever wanted to respond to Tommy Wiseau's The Room, this would have to be the movie. Studying film in college at the moment of this review, it should be noted that I haven't even talked about the film's technical problems yet. Frames that look pretty weird, sound that just lags from scene to scene (it will either just cut during dialogue or will feel way too low...one scene in particular that comes to mind is a scene in which a washing machine makes more noise than the characters talking. I cannot believe that nobody saw that during post- production)...This film is absolutely terrible.
A Final Word: A friend of mine works in a theater. He states that on Saturday, during the whole day, only one person bought a ticket. That same person got a refund 20 minutes into the movie. Yesterday, the theater was empty except for me and this friend, and another woman, who walked out after 40 minutes. That didn't matter because we didn't have to contain our laughter anymore. If anybody walked by our auditorium, they must've thought we were watching the comedy of the century.