r_smith-46773
Watched this tonight - on demand in the UAE. Was such a pleasant surprise - OK not an Oscar winner but a sensitive subject - pursued well. Well constructed, edited and quite polished. Not art-house, not mainstream, but polished performances from all. A really good "fall back movie" when garbage is on the telly. Well done - perfectly executed - with characters that in real life you would not understand, or at least maybe even dismiss. Movies like this are a real "gem" (maybe I am a bit weird but I loved the Station Agent, Leibstrum and Run Lola Run) as I like the different perspective in movies. This was just a good piece of film-making!! A good night in!
TxMike
I found this movie on Netflix streaming movies. I was attracted to it for its cast, all fine actors.It starts with Pierce Brosnan as Martin, sneaking a ladder into the stairwell of a tall building on New Year's Eve, ostensibly to make a bridge across the protective barrier on rooftop, so that he can jump off and kill himself. What is so bad in his life? He is a family man with a great job as a London TV show personality. But that tryst with the girl he thought was maybe 25 went bad when it turned out she was only 15! He is a disgraced man.But as he is just about to walk the plank he hears a voice, it is Toni Collette as Maureen. She has come to the rooftop for a similar reason, to kill herself, but her story is totally different.Next the two of them are joined by Imogen Poots as Jess, then a bit later by pizza delivery boy, Aaron Paul as JJ. They all have this one thing in common, they decide to kill themselves for various reasons that it total don't really make sense.So the movie is really about the 4 of them making a pact that night, to not do anything until Valentine's Day, the next most popular day for suicides. They form bonds of sorts, they even fly as a group to a vacation spot. We gradually learn all the other stories. And of course things get better for each of them.Not a great movie but a very interesting one, worth a viewing.
Matt_Layden
Had no idea what this film was when I decided to watch it on Netflix and was pleasantly surprised by how attached I became to the subject matter, the characters and the story. Brosnan is a disgraced TV personalty and decides to commit suicide by jumping off the top of a building on New Year's Eve. While up there, he meets 3 other people, played by Toni Collette, Aaron Paul and Imogen Poots, all there to do the same thing. None of them commit the act and instead form a weird bond between each other. A pact is made not to commit suicide until the next "popular" suicide date, which is Valentine's Day. Dark subject matter, I know. Despite the content of the film involving topics such as cancer, suicide, underage sex and other questionable character choices, the film balances this topics interestingly enough to keep it rather light. It never became too dark, nor too comedic. It walked a fine line of genuine trust in the characters. I found myself attached to each one, their faults, their quirks and liked them all. Imogen Poots has the hardest task of playing the "wild card" character. This character can sometimes become irritatingly annoying and I can see some people thinking her performance here is just that, but I found it oddly charming and real. She's a young girl who yearns to be loved and can't find it. She's lost, she feels alone and she turns to uncomfortable humour as a shield to hide her true feelings. I felt that her character had the most demons and she came off as the most interesting. The film is broken up into four segments and each segment is from one of the characters POV. At first I was afraid that it was going to be one of those films that played the same event multiple times from different character perspectives, but was relieved when that was not the case. The film fails to use the supporting cast effectively. Sam Neil is only in a few select scenes and Rosamund Pike is in one very uncomfortable one. Couldn't help but feel that their talents were slightly wasted here. I had no idea this film was based on a book, thus had nothing to hold it against. There seems to be a lot of hate towards it, but I was genuinely interested from start to finish.
NickSkouras
great film! so good to see pierce brosnan doing this kind of workalong w other films he's recently done. well done.wow. human beings huh? life. etc. love. the lives of strangers in our own towns. apartment buildings. humanity.if we'd only have a bit more compassion each week. a small thing here or there for another. turn off the spirit crushing TV programming and watch some good films like this one. might do the trick. if only for a moment.better than nothing.
AD
