Watched this at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival.
Filmmaker Laura Chinn definitely has a vision and trying to capture the essence of the early 2000's of Florida life hood and even with good intentions, the movie is afraid to be confrontational with it's serious subject and ends up feeling cliched and Oscar-bait like CODA.
Throughout, the production designs are solid and the soundtrack was pretty annoying. The narrative explores themes about death, religion, family, and the politics surrounding it and includes some serious themes that could have been pretty good. But unfortunately the narrative is too scared to get into the themes to explore more deeper about it and ends up, feeling cheesy, uninspiring and lackluster of a story.
The performances from the cast members are solid as Nico Parker provides the best performance from the entire cast. Unfortunately, the characters weren't interesting as they felt underdeveloped and kind of annoying to fully connect with. I like Woody Harrleson but his character was annoying and felt like the cheesy Hollywood character in basic drama movies. The dialogue is a bit rough and the basic narrative ends up causing the movie to feel pretty dull and lifeless.
Chinn's direction is fine but it doesn't really do a good job on handling the subject matter and I kind of wish it focused more deeper into the themes rather feeling like a vibe movie at times.
One of the weaker selections from the U. S. Dramatic Competition.
Filmmaker Laura Chinn definitely has a vision and trying to capture the essence of the early 2000's of Florida life hood and even with good intentions, the movie is afraid to be confrontational with it's serious subject and ends up feeling cliched and Oscar-bait like CODA.
Throughout, the production designs are solid and the soundtrack was pretty annoying. The narrative explores themes about death, religion, family, and the politics surrounding it and includes some serious themes that could have been pretty good. But unfortunately the narrative is too scared to get into the themes to explore more deeper about it and ends up, feeling cheesy, uninspiring and lackluster of a story.
The performances from the cast members are solid as Nico Parker provides the best performance from the entire cast. Unfortunately, the characters weren't interesting as they felt underdeveloped and kind of annoying to fully connect with. I like Woody Harrleson but his character was annoying and felt like the cheesy Hollywood character in basic drama movies. The dialogue is a bit rough and the basic narrative ends up causing the movie to feel pretty dull and lifeless.
Chinn's direction is fine but it doesn't really do a good job on handling the subject matter and I kind of wish it focused more deeper into the themes rather feeling like a vibe movie at times.
One of the weaker selections from the U. S. Dramatic Competition.