EasyThere Pilgrim
Without spoiling it....let me just say that one of the main characters is so utterly annoying and detestable that I couldn't even watch the movie. I had to fast-forward a couple times. Just a lousy movie. One character is annoying and utterly unwatchable. I also got sick of watching the worrying parents; usually I like a movie like this....but this one just stunk. Boring too. I know this review might sound simplistic or leave you wondering....all I can say is I usually like a movie about parents searching for their kid and all that drama. But not this time. This one was awful. Oh....the 'dream scenes'....everyone in this movie sees 'visions' of the missing girl, dancing in the clouds and crap. Boring. And both parents see these visions and faint....it just stunk.
Tim Kidner
It was the star names of Guy Pearce and Sam Neill that made me look twice when scrolling through Sky Movies 'Anytime' selection.Guy has often been excellent and Sam's always a solid performer and I had hopes that this might be above your average TV 'missing persons case of the week', with some adult-orientated content and good acting.There's a lot of surface stylised gloss that might seem superfluous, at least initially, in what is essentially a depiction of the shattering life of the outgoing, confident 15 year old Rachel (Kate Bell). She's sexy and with a boyfriend who she is obviously besotted with. Guy Pierce, is husband to Miranda Otto and are the parents to Rachel and they are the ones who raise the alarm to a unsympathetic police.Sam Neill plays the business-man father of the emotionally troubled Caroline and he is caught between his awkwardness around and toward his daughter (an excellent Ruth Bradley) and to him, his more interesting and productive work-life.However, the swirling and sweeping camera and heightened experience that director Simone North (who's been in TV production since the 80s, inc. The Flying Doctors) uses certainly makes the film more watchable. There's also a fair amount of fantasy and psychological sequences and cross-cutting of time zones, which does make piecing the events together a little confusing at times, but it does gel after a while.As the film progresses, we see how these two girls interact and how their friendship might have contributed to the initial outcome. I'm going to leave the plot there - if you watch it then you'll find out more. This is not the sort of film that I would have wanted to pay to see, either at the Cinema, nor as a DVD rental. It's OK as a weekday filler feature, but to be honest, nothing much more than that. 6/10, or 3 stars.
Talktojudie
I saw a movie today that moved me. I watched it by chance. I almost returned the movie to Netflix without watching. But, as luck would have it, I had nothing else to do, and nothing on my DVR, so I popped it in. I was in a trance the entire time. Simone North did something that is rarely done in movies today. She got a gut wrenching, honest and realistic performance. Ruth Bradley should have won an Oscar for her performance. The realistic portrayal of insanity was amazing. I was reading some reviews and was quite disappointed by their negative opinions of the movie. I am not sure what has happened to Hollywood. Why is it so one sided now? Why must everything in the movies be about portraying America as Bad and evil, the minority as the victim, the homosexual as the hero....I am okay with all of that IF THE MOVIE IS GOOD! Focus on the story, the acting....stop with the regurgitation of last years hits. Thank you Simone North for stepping out of the box and giving us some amazing performances.
perkypops
Anyone whose child has gone missing, even momentarily, will connect with the earliest moments of this version of true events, but, perhaps only those for whom the loss remains unresolved for any serious length of time will know how close to their reality this film touches. It is almost relentlessly tough to watch because there is no place for pressure to be relieved, however briefly, by a joke, a glimmer of hope, a slither of a flaw to make us remember we are watching a dramatised version of events. I even find it tough to judge the quality of the acting because too often this film seems so vividly, so uncomfortably, and so chillingly real. I am, if truth be told, just in awe of all the performances I have witnessed and I still have to pinch myself to remember it was "just a film". Is that a compliment?I felt tears on my cheeks three times during this film, not because I was sad, but because my being had to have an outlet and I couldn't laugh or smile. The emptiness, pointlessness, coldness, loneliness of a missing loved one is so bitingly portrayed and yet saying "okay that's enough, I have got your point" is as futile as the parents of Rachel Barber shouting "Rachel come home" on every street corner they could.I remember Hitchcock being heavily criticised by some in the industry for a seven minute killing sequence in "Torn Curtain" when that was easier to justify because it was a work of fiction and a thriller rather than "a week or so in the real life of a family". And so I had mixed feelings about "I Am You" when I reflected on some of the things I had seen, including the closing statements popular with "factual" drama.I am left with these mixed feelings ranging from the reality of the acting to the old adage that imagination is always more powerful than a picture, from the top to the bottom of the things I should feel. And ultimately I cannot give this film a points score because it doesn't feel like it entered the cinematic league stakes. It is a film and if you see it you will feel what it does to you rather than want to talk about to friends. And that IS tough.
AD
