Amazing performances from Kidman and Bardem, tight editing, a great script ... except that... for a decidedly feelgood movie for over two hours, it denies the audience a happy ending.
Is it clever? Is it trying to make a point? Is the job of movies to 'educate' us about something? Sorkin maybe tries to hit a certain demographic by lifting the audience up and then sinking them again. But that's not the film promised. You wouldn't write Singin' in the Rain with a suicide or heart-attack or murder or an epitaph to the collapse of the economy at the end. This is not the movie Lucille Ball would have written, not even the one the Lucille Ball of the movie would have written. She knew genre. Mr Sorkin seems to have forgotten.
Is it clever? Is it trying to make a point? Is the job of movies to 'educate' us about something? Sorkin maybe tries to hit a certain demographic by lifting the audience up and then sinking them again. But that's not the film promised. You wouldn't write Singin' in the Rain with a suicide or heart-attack or murder or an epitaph to the collapse of the economy at the end. This is not the movie Lucille Ball would have written, not even the one the Lucille Ball of the movie would have written. She knew genre. Mr Sorkin seems to have forgotten.