Worst casting since Pacino played a Cuban yelling "Fush yu mang!" every few minutes.
No one Asian, or who has ever lived in Asia, or even has ever been around any Asians besides in restaurants or resorts, would find Hunt believable as Indonesian. Not the face, eyes, skin tone. Not the veddy British accent either.
It's like asking us to believe Peter Sellers as Charlie Chan...wait, Hollywood actually did that. OK, Sellers as Fu Manchu...oh, that happened also? OK, Peter Ustinov as Chan. Oh, Hollywood did that too.
Thank God it was only in the past...wait, there was a film with blond blue eyed Emma Stone as Chinese and Hawaiian? In 2015?
What made Hollywood so delusional as to like this performance, even giving it an award? Probably because of the White Savior message of the film, which Hollywood just loves. Her winning an Oscar was one of the worst choices in Oscar history, as bad as Traffic winning best film, and for the same White Savior reasons.
It's just as huge a mark against the film in that this story allegedly about the mass killings of over half a million Indonesians focuses on two pretty dull white people having an affair. That's like making a Holocaust filmmwhere you spend half the film on two gentiles fooling around.
Still, the film does have its moments. The Indonesian actors, scenes, and story hold your interest. But that's less than half the film.
ETA: I'm glad of the strong reactions to my review, both the downvotes and the higher than I expected number of up votes. Good to know some others feel the same.
No one Asian, or who has ever lived in Asia, or even has ever been around any Asians besides in restaurants or resorts, would find Hunt believable as Indonesian. Not the face, eyes, skin tone. Not the veddy British accent either.
It's like asking us to believe Peter Sellers as Charlie Chan...wait, Hollywood actually did that. OK, Sellers as Fu Manchu...oh, that happened also? OK, Peter Ustinov as Chan. Oh, Hollywood did that too.
Thank God it was only in the past...wait, there was a film with blond blue eyed Emma Stone as Chinese and Hawaiian? In 2015?
What made Hollywood so delusional as to like this performance, even giving it an award? Probably because of the White Savior message of the film, which Hollywood just loves. Her winning an Oscar was one of the worst choices in Oscar history, as bad as Traffic winning best film, and for the same White Savior reasons.
It's just as huge a mark against the film in that this story allegedly about the mass killings of over half a million Indonesians focuses on two pretty dull white people having an affair. That's like making a Holocaust filmmwhere you spend half the film on two gentiles fooling around.
Still, the film does have its moments. The Indonesian actors, scenes, and story hold your interest. But that's less than half the film.
ETA: I'm glad of the strong reactions to my review, both the downvotes and the higher than I expected number of up votes. Good to know some others feel the same.