This is really not the movie I was expecting. At right about the halfway point we're given a flashback of a few minutes that dumps a boatload of plot on us, but up until then the narrative has scarcely been developed at all. More to the point, while a complete story is in fact told, it's emphatically fragmented, chopped into bits and pieces that are barely cohesive as they present. I've no doubt that this was the intent of filmmaker Claire Denis and collaborator Jean-Pol Fargeau from the start in shaping their screenplay, and I say this not as an immediate reflection on the title's quality - but it does make 'Trouble every day' more difficult to engage with right away, and for lack of narrative flow the picture has a hard time building atmosphere, or substantial investment or excitement.
Then again, to me the sequencing and cinematography seem all over the place: overly swift, overzealous, sometimes artistic in nature but emptily so, doing further disservice to the tale. At the same time, this maintains a surprisingly low-key tone; Denis' direction is so restrained that for the preponderance of the length any energy that one might suppose the tale to carry is all but entirely sapped from the proceedings. This is to say nothing of the acting; I struggle to conjure another example of a feature in which the cast broadly seemed so disinterested in their work. Or maybe they were just all very sleepy on each day of filming? Accentuating the point, it's not until the one-hour mark, when this is two-thirds over, that we're treated to some of the vibrancy we may have anticipated to have gotten all along. It takes 'Trouble every day' until the third act to warm up - and thereafter it just lets the electricity gradually fade again.
I actually do think this is good when all is said and done. I also think the unconventional approach to its storytelling, and the heavily subdued tenor, do the title no favors whatsoever. The end result is compelling and satisfying, and well done such as it is despite faults. It also passes by unremarkably, never leaving much of a mark and bereft of any emotional force. Scenes and story threads of little to no significant import are given undue weight; the ending rolls around in no time at all, and rather abruptly for how softly the material is treated. To conclude a film with no meaningful resolution is a fair and worthwhile notion, for there's no telling sometimes what the future may hold for characters - yet for as meagerly as the narrative has been handled all along in this case, that "up in the air" ending just feels like troubled writing. I like 'Trouble every day,' but I want to like it more than I do in the same instant that I wonder if I'm not being too kind.
I believe this earns a soft and cautious recommendation. Would that it did more to impress.
Then again, to me the sequencing and cinematography seem all over the place: overly swift, overzealous, sometimes artistic in nature but emptily so, doing further disservice to the tale. At the same time, this maintains a surprisingly low-key tone; Denis' direction is so restrained that for the preponderance of the length any energy that one might suppose the tale to carry is all but entirely sapped from the proceedings. This is to say nothing of the acting; I struggle to conjure another example of a feature in which the cast broadly seemed so disinterested in their work. Or maybe they were just all very sleepy on each day of filming? Accentuating the point, it's not until the one-hour mark, when this is two-thirds over, that we're treated to some of the vibrancy we may have anticipated to have gotten all along. It takes 'Trouble every day' until the third act to warm up - and thereafter it just lets the electricity gradually fade again.
I actually do think this is good when all is said and done. I also think the unconventional approach to its storytelling, and the heavily subdued tenor, do the title no favors whatsoever. The end result is compelling and satisfying, and well done such as it is despite faults. It also passes by unremarkably, never leaving much of a mark and bereft of any emotional force. Scenes and story threads of little to no significant import are given undue weight; the ending rolls around in no time at all, and rather abruptly for how softly the material is treated. To conclude a film with no meaningful resolution is a fair and worthwhile notion, for there's no telling sometimes what the future may hold for characters - yet for as meagerly as the narrative has been handled all along in this case, that "up in the air" ending just feels like troubled writing. I like 'Trouble every day,' but I want to like it more than I do in the same instant that I wonder if I'm not being too kind.
I believe this earns a soft and cautious recommendation. Would that it did more to impress.