The content is important to me, my dad having grown up on the Falls Road in Belfast. But really my comment falls in with charlie perry's from Australia on this film. Everyone except charlie have commented on the content but the film's weakness is in the craft of the screenplay.
Catharsis is necessary in a film no matter the content. This is the problem here. In order to set the audience up (spoiler ahead) for the ending you must take care to carefully review the script to prepare us to accept that ending. Didn't happen here.
Instead, Little is a slick, arrogant dude whose assumed experience with grief counsellors and self-help groups has made him fail to need anything at all including transformation within himself in meeting Griffin. He has "been there done that" with grief on this topic. He is too well defended in his meetings, too media-savvy in his prepared, fancy speeches, etc. so that the viewer never gets to know what the heck he needs from Griffin. Why meet?
There was a moment ...at the climax of the film, in the Lurgan house, right before they fought, when I thought I understood why the writer made this choice (of having Little so slick, talking in bumper-stickers about grief, as if he knows ahead of time what Griffin wants and therefore is "above" Griffin in his mind). I said "oh I see: Little wants Griffin to put him out of his misery." But I was wrong.
In the end there was no cinematic reason for Little being a know-it-all, predicting to the TV people what Griffin would want, etc. This viewer found herself wanting to slap him. And at the end I was hoping Griffin would take him out! Now don't get all touchy feely on me here. I am simply talking about building characters evenly in screenplay format. Obviously, if the writer wanted to keep the know it all in Little, that's fine, but as charlie Perry in a comment above says, you need to present scenes from the personal life of Little that balance or explain his know it all non-humble attitude and provide a reason why he wants to meet Griffin. he never does apologize and just seems smug. Hence the catharsis just doesn't happen.
The viewer is left puzzled by Little's collapse on the street at the end: why is he so upset? He was a smug bugger before this. Why did he even want to meet Griffin if he knew all the answers beforehand?
Catharsis is necessary in a film no matter the content. This is the problem here. In order to set the audience up (spoiler ahead) for the ending you must take care to carefully review the script to prepare us to accept that ending. Didn't happen here.
Instead, Little is a slick, arrogant dude whose assumed experience with grief counsellors and self-help groups has made him fail to need anything at all including transformation within himself in meeting Griffin. He has "been there done that" with grief on this topic. He is too well defended in his meetings, too media-savvy in his prepared, fancy speeches, etc. so that the viewer never gets to know what the heck he needs from Griffin. Why meet?
There was a moment ...at the climax of the film, in the Lurgan house, right before they fought, when I thought I understood why the writer made this choice (of having Little so slick, talking in bumper-stickers about grief, as if he knows ahead of time what Griffin wants and therefore is "above" Griffin in his mind). I said "oh I see: Little wants Griffin to put him out of his misery." But I was wrong.
In the end there was no cinematic reason for Little being a know-it-all, predicting to the TV people what Griffin would want, etc. This viewer found herself wanting to slap him. And at the end I was hoping Griffin would take him out! Now don't get all touchy feely on me here. I am simply talking about building characters evenly in screenplay format. Obviously, if the writer wanted to keep the know it all in Little, that's fine, but as charlie Perry in a comment above says, you need to present scenes from the personal life of Little that balance or explain his know it all non-humble attitude and provide a reason why he wants to meet Griffin. he never does apologize and just seems smug. Hence the catharsis just doesn't happen.
The viewer is left puzzled by Little's collapse on the street at the end: why is he so upset? He was a smug bugger before this. Why did he even want to meet Griffin if he knew all the answers beforehand?