krocheav After reading a short synopsis of this movie it certainly sounded worth a look - that was as close as it got. Why writers and movie makers feel it's their right to make movies about real life murders - then take ugly liberties with the facts in order to spin their own fantasies and selfish motivations go's well beyond any creative forgiveness.Whatever the real life participants may or may not have been - they don't deserve to become an excuse for a fictionalized story about drug and sex abuse by somewhat superficial journalists, novelists, etc - all having nothing to do with the actual case at the center of the movie. This convoluted, sleep inducing, waste of valuable time and resources has earned its failure. BBC and others should have known better.

Alex Heaton (azanti0029) 'The only way to really tell what happened is to fictionalise it - that's the only way to get to the truth' - Words to this effect are said at the beginning of the film (I can't be sure of the exact quote and would never want to see it again) so I thought okay, I see where they're going with this. Change the names so we can explore everything that needs to be said about this case. What we got however is an incoherent, uneven, self indulgent piece about a coke sniffing delusional film maker who fails to connect with either the story or the people around him while trying to write a script about it. Maybe that is what happened as a result of the director trying to make this film, but then okay, don't make a film about that! The memory of Meredith Kercher is lost here and becomes almost as irrelevant as the title of the film which tries to have a clever double meaning and fails on every level. When I heard this film was in the works under the stewardship of Michael Winterbottom I thought it was going to be in safe hands. He is a brilliant film maker. No stranger to the world of true life drama stories but something went really wrong here. The film feels like it became a parody of what a film maker goes through when trying to make a film of this type - which is complex and difficult to get to the truth of, while that is as maybe this is completely the wrong subject and material with which to explore those issues - For one thing its about a true life murder case when an innocent girl with her whole life ahead of her was brutally murdered and those responsible appear to have got away with it. I was expecting a film with real balls which was going to take on the known facts of this case which captured the media attention of the world and work through them methodically and give some much needed clarity to areas of the case which have been portrayed with ever increasing conflict in the media. If the Kercher family were hoping this film would in anyway give them a sense of closure or at least bring some light to the darker areas of this case, how disappointed they must have been. I find it hard to understand what attracted the cast to the material though Daniel Bruhl is on form in the leading role and redeems himself well but do we really need to dodgy CGI monsters induced by this drug taking? An extremely badly misjudged film which hopefully will be forgotten very quickly.

annie_honeys The Face of an Angel, is first of all, not a very great film. It has its flaws, the pacing for example, is not griping enough for one to keep on watching even for a pretending-to-be crime thriller. But undeniably, it is unique kind of a film, and like Walter Raleigh says, "it is adulterated, sanded poetry that makes the best lectures". I never read the book though, so I only feel what the film lead me to. and i have to admit, it is pretty remarkable, give or take. The story is centered around a crime solving: two roommates, Elizabeth the good angelic one is murdered and the public incensed by the media blames the naughty girl Jessica , making guilty and jail of her, which is a typical analogy for the biblical Eva-Lilith situation. The film goes through three genre changes till it ends. The crime thriller is only a pretend, that part is made clear as we are a quarter in the film where the writer-hero warns us that his film would be one of the exceptions of crime thrillers, which means there would be no crime-solving in the end, surely there is none as the film ends. The writer hero actually spends the entire time trying to figure out how to make sense of what he is now telling, constantly explaining his topology and originality in story-making, which can be quite tiresome and irritating to watch sometimes, i have to admit. But the suspense of the film at the same time shifts from a crime solving to a genre figuring: we wonder how the writer-hero is going to make out of this story-telling after all. In the process, the cinematic style changes as he teases us with the structure of Dante's Infernal, taking its semi- Gothic elements, making parallels of the plot: Beatrice guides Dante ascending from hell, as Melanie (Cara's character) guides the writer hero out of his gloom. Then Melanie lead the hero to read"La Vita Nuova", which promises another possible genre change. By now, if any audience haven't abandon the film, they are about to witness the strong ending the film presents. It is strong not in the sense of plot, 'cause apparently nothing happened or is solved: Elizabeth is dead with no one to be blamed, Jessica is set free, but still not free from the blame of the public; it is strong ending shot in a series of melancholic montage, linking the hero's child Beatrice, the adolescent Melanie, and the deceased Elizabeth together, forcing the audience to see the inevitable affiliations between the three: apparitions of the same angel, in her different embodiment of ages. Thus, the film is eventually about a lamentation of beauty passing away, just like the father laments her daughter Elizabeth in her funeral, quoting Dante's lamentation on his beloved Beatrice, the same way the writer hero tries to get hold of her daughter via Skype, through image, but never does for real. It hints in the end, Melanie could be a figurative character out of the writer hero's creation, to let show the beauty's mysterious ways in the world before its passing, the imaginative figure that in reality passes without anyone sees, who also helps him work through his trauma to its lost, similarly as Beatrice to Dante in the inferno. The great thing about this ending metaphor is that it is not explicitly showed,which makes sense given the main tone of the film is still realistic despite monsters appears occasionally in hero's nightmares, breaking the genre for a bit of a sec. The ambiguity of the real and fantastic in this film turns out a big win for me. It's subtle, and definitely requires some patience and overall working-through on the audience's part. When one does figure it out , it leaves you with this lingering sense, a sense of love as well as a reminiscence of the beauty in a general sense, as Dante's La Vita Nuova promises us.Of course, that just might be the original novel telling, not so much about the movie itself. Might as well read the book.

Tom Dooley Some will say that t is still too soon to be making a film about a murder case that shocked the World and they are arguably right. I did not know this was about that until I started watching it and will judge it as a film in its own rights. Anyway Daniel Bruhl plays a film maker who has had a run of bad luck and wants to make a film about the murder case and he teams up with a journalist played by Kate Beckinsale; she has been following the case from the start in Sienna.The case is ongoing as the film develops and Bruhl's character gets completely immersed and for those that followed the case there will be moments of déjà vu through out. There are many references to Dante's 'Divine Comedy' too and some rather awkward dream sequences.Is it any god though? Well I was not disinterested at all but it was still not riveting. Everyone puts in a good performance although some are a bit stereo typed – especially some of the journalists. So it is above average but I could not get away from the fact that for some people this case is still a living hell and that cast a pall over any 'enjoyment' (if that is the right word) that I could get from this production – hence my rating but I would not try to dissuade anyone from seeing this especially if you are fan of either of the leading actors as they both serve their trade well.