| Easily Cronenberg's worst |
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| written by emdoub |
December 17, 2009 - 12:57 PM PST |
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1 out of 4 members found this review helpful
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I'll confess - I couldn't stand watching the second half of the film, so my review is based upon the first 45 minutes.
Spider is a grim, dismal inmate of a grim, dismal halfway house in a grim, dismal London. The cinematography shows this beautifully, the actors step up to the plate and deliver, nicely.
As a long-time fan of Cronenberg's films, I was really looking forward to enjoying this film. I'm fond of think pieces, and certainly don't need an explosion or chase scene every 5 minutes to keep my attention.
In the first 45 minutes, there are three notable events - we see that there's lots of rust in the house's water supply, a cheap doxy in the pub flashes a breast at Spider's younger self, and the young Spider walks in on his mother while she's wearing a slip. The only interesting character is a fellow inmate at the halfway house, who has about 5 lines in the first half of the film.
At that point, I simply was bored - I didn't care about what happened, if anything ever did. The ending may be brilliant, but I couldn't invest any more time in such a dismal film to find out. Pacing has never been an issue in any of Cronenberg's other films, many of which border on brilliance - but in this, it's a flaw I found to be fatal. |
| Web of memories |
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| written by CSullivan |
March 30, 2004 - 11:59 PM PST |
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4 out of 5 members found this review helpful
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This is a dark, slow moving psychological drama of mental illness and a man's attempt to peel through his confusing memories to get to the truth of his past. Fantasy is mixed with reality and just as it is difficult for Spider to sort through, so it is for us. It is an interesting film, one that leaves you with multiple ways of interpreting what happened; the memories shown may or may not be what actually happened (even the ending). Ralph Fiennes is excellent as the troubled, solitary title character, Spider. Miranda Richardson in a triple role is also wonderful, as always. Howard Shore composed the austere and lonely music--a complete 180 from his work on LOTR. I had no idea what this movie was about before renting it, and was pleasantly surprised by it. I would recommend it to anyone looking for a thought provoking drama.
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| captures the schizophrenia well |
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| written by rarcher |
September 15, 2003 - 11:23 AM PDT |
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2 out of 7 members found this review helpful
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this film does a good job of capturing and conveying the confusion and paranoia of schizophrenia
you can maybe guess what happens, but you don't KNOW
fiennes owns in this film |
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