markandkarenfitz This is one of those films, at least some films are like this for me, that lumber along until they are finally over, and I find that I was neither much interested as it progress or disappointed that it was over. One of those films where I am baffled as to what went wrong. Sometimes, I think that I just don't understand "directing" and when a film fails for me it must be because it was poorly directed. Film written, directed and acted my a single individual often have this feel.The storyline in this one is really a bunch of best separated events somehow threaded together. The actor/director places himself way too often as the focus of the story.In the end this film reminds be a moving picture version of those angst-ridden/tortured soul/lonely iconoclast album cover shots by solo musicians. Even Springsteen had some of those.

nabokov95 Firstly, I came to this movie without having seen "Curfew". Several commentators have pointed out that that is important in the way you see this movie so I'll get that out of the way to start with. I checked out the user score (7.2 at time of writing) and the Meta score (47/100 at time of writing). A bit of a mismatch I thought and maybe it was down to the film being "upped" by users. (We all know it happens right? Reviewers who come out of nowhere and submit one review giving a film 10 / 10 and then disappear as quickly as they appeared. All's fair in love and marketing). Anyway, as a result I decided to take a chance on it but with some reservations at the back of my mind and not really expecting anything that would really get me. What followed was rare, the realisation that the users had nailed it and the critics had really come down way too hard on this movie for all the wrong reasons. "Underwhelming, inconsistent, superfluous, bloated, meandering, posey, abrasive, over amped" to mention a few of the words used. I really don't know what film they were watching. Shawn Christensen, the writer, director and star of this film has already picked up an Oscar in 2013 for best Live Action Short but this film is dismissed as "not a bad freshman effort"? Ignore the critics and take a chance on this one. If you go in with an open mind and let yourself go with it's unusual flow you might really enjoy it. Finally, the cast were uniformly good. Fatima Ptacek, who I hadn't come across before, was brilliant, certainly one to watch, and Ron Perlman was Ron Perlman, nobody does that better than him.

moviefan098 I give this an 8 and I don't do it lightly. I'm also not rating it highly as an indie, it's good compared to any project. This movie is absolutely haunting. The writer has a deep understand of people and displays them so realistically. I really liked the fact that it didn't have cliché characters. The "gangsters" don't do what you expect them to do. The things people did in this movie weren't over the top, it felt very real.The cinematography and shots were fantastic in this movie. It was at times like a dream or an acid trip and it never felt out of place. The transitions between hallucinations and real life were not stark and abrupt like in other movies where someone is tripping. Shawn Christensen is going to be the director to watch out for in the future. The casting was perfect. Everybody was good. I just dislike Ron Perlman because he gets cast in this type of role in so many movies that it's starting to be a cliché, still he was great.Christensen is also a great writer. This movie was at once deeply sad and entertaining. Casting Fatima Ptecek as Sophia was perfect. She was the pillar of light for Richie's darkness and she was just a delight to watch. There really is something special about Ptecek. She's the next Abigail Breslin.

Lowbacca1977 A few years ago, Shawn Christensen won an Oscar for his amazing live- action short called Curfew, focused on a man in despair and contemplating suicide that gets the first chance to spend time with his niece, now around 11 years old. The short was very deserving of that Oscar, and Christensen took an interesting route to build on that by starting with that same initial story and fleshing it out into a full feature length film.On one hand, I would like to see him go into something new with the same finesse that he showed in Curfew, and I feel like there's directions he went here that didn't feel as genuine as some aspects of the same characters in Curfew.On the other hand, though, he kept many of the key moments and feelings from the short, while fleshing out so much more to it. I do also very much like that Fatima Ptacek returns as Tabitha, the niece, as she had a great performance in the short, and she does just as strong of a job here. This film really wouldn't be as strong as it is without her.Christensen plays the lead role as well as directing, and while he's good in front of the camera, it's behind the camera that's really what impresses me. The style and flow of the short was good, but he does so much more here, and there's a very strong visual presence in so many scenes that it really sticks with me. This includes not only some of the more fanciful parts, like an expanded version of the music number from the short to simple shots, like the phone on the floor at the start of the film.What really strikes me is how he managed to take a short and really not dilute it when he extended it out to feature-length, and it still maintains its emotional center, and I think that shows a lot of creativity and skill as both a writer and a director. I really hope that this film does well enough that it opens the doors to more work by Christensen, although I can't help but feel that with the quality of this film, it will do so.