If Blockbuster still existed (R.I.P.), Andrew Renzi’s Franny would be the equivalent of picking a family friendly VHS with a cover featuring an audacious aristocrat who looks amusingly like he’s about to learn a thing or two about what really matters in life, only to get home, stick it in the VHS player and discover you’ve actually gotten a film about a drug addict that happens to have money. A little jarring to say the least. Insert a score that would actually fit that fun-loving aristocrat comedy and feels ridiculously out-of-place in this more serious character study and the film feels like it has the cinematic equivalent of body dysmorphia.

Beginning with Dakota Fanning’s Olivia preparing to go off to college as her parents lay down the final decisions on the children’s hospital they are founding with their longtime friend Franny (Richard Gere), things are of course a little too happy to last. And they don’t, almost immediately Franny and her parents get into a horrific car accident that results in Olivia’s parents dying. Flash forward five years and Franny, also injured in the crash, lives a secluded life of luxury, maintained by a morphine addiction that mellows him out enough to at least sometimes hang out with the children at his hospital. Olivia calls from out of the blue one day. She’s married, she’s pregnant, and her doctor husband needs a job. As much addicted to philanthropy as he is morphine, Franny is more than happy to find Luke (Theo James) a position at his hospital.

Upon returning to Philadelphia, Olivia tries to pick up with Franny, guilty about having left when she did, distraught by her own grief. Franny is thrilled to have Poodles (as he calls her) back in his life, and eager to recreate the relationship he had with her parents, he begins to deluge the young couple with gifts. Franny’s morphine addiction catches up to him as quickly as the reality of him not being able to recreate the past does as well.

Mood-wise, the film is all over the place. The music tries to capture Franny’s wealth and pomp but seems to have missed the note that he’s also a crazed drug addict. A couple skin-crawling moments of drug addiction keeps things feeling uneasy. Fanning is barely given lines in the film, let alone a character, so it’s no surprise that what should be the driving relationship of the film ends up as lip service and static. Instead Renzi (who takes his first foray into drama with this film, and also wrote it) focuses on Luke and Franny’s strange power-play bromance.

Whether he’s in denial of his own place in life, Gere weirdly comes across as a younger actor trying to play an older man. He’s got the rich eccentric thing, but not enough of the world-weariness. James is probably the strongest performance of the film, but it’s a little too easy to see his Insurgent bad-boy at play, not enough softness with Olivia to even things out. Fanning’s constant wide-eyes and warm voice make Olivia likable, but she’s shortchanged in the writing and thus underutilized.

Franny clearly wants to be a great many things. Heartwarming, emotional, a character study, and an acting platform; it takes two hours to come to a conclusion that would take two minutes in reality. If only more of Franny’s outgoing wealth-induced charm felt real it may have tipped the scale toward an enjoyable film, but in the end the pity one feels leaving the theater is likely to be geared more toward their own wasted time then to anything happening to the characters.

Effie Gray is a 19th century period piece that wants to be about feminism and female independence in the Victorian era, but the road it takes to get to its central message is so long and lonesome that, simply put, it winds up being too dull an affair for us to care. Dakota Fanning—the once exceedingly precocious child actor who’s recently found her footing as a mature, refined thesp—plays Euphemia “Effie” Gray, a sad girl stuck in a sad situation. In 1848 the 19-year-old Gray married John Ruskin (Greg Wise), one of the most eminently lauded and biting art critics of the era. Before they were wedded, Ruskin wrote a fairy tale inspired by Gray called “The King of the Golden River” (they met when Gray was only 12); unfortunately, what became of their eventual marriage was the stuff of nightmares rather than romance fantasy.

The film, directed by Richard Laxton and written by Emma Thompson, begins in the muck (and stays there): On their wedding night, Effie de-robes in front of her new husband in a gesture that by any measure is completely normal and expected. John’s reaction is anything but normal, however, as he’s frozen in fright at the sight of Effie’s pubic hair, turning down her offer for intercourse on their wedding night. It’s a dick move that’s both childish and repugnant, considering the poor girl literally bared all for him. John yanks Effie away from her home in Scotland to live with his rich family in their posh, stuffy London mansion. Once we meet John’s parents, it becomes clear where his dick-ish tendencies comes from.

John’s parents (Julie Walters and David Suchet, in antagonist mode) step all over Effie from the get-go, ignoring her presence most of the time and ridiculing her whenever her actions don’t align with their impossible expectations. John’s a momma’s boy, so her disdain for his new wife slowly trickles down until his resentment for Effie is level with his parents’. The bitter oppression doled out by the Ruskins is what defines the movie: a large majority of the running time is dedicated to watching Effie look miserable after getting verbally stoned by her husband and in-laws. Everything culminates in the last 20 minutes of the film, when Effie devises a plan to free herself from the shackles of marriage, but it’s too little too late; by the time we get there, we’re drowning in a pool of sorrow, too dejected for her final stand to make a lasting impact. The only lasting image to take away is Fanning’s vacant facial expression, which hovers perpetually somewhere between groggy and comatose.

Laxton and Thompson’s storytelling is so plodding and sedate that the film ends up being incredibly vapid and mildly dramatic at best. If the movie took less time illustrating Effie’s poisonous environment and more time delving into her personal quest for independence, this might have been a more involving affair with more narrative thrust. But instead, the film stagnates, wallowing in the sorry state of Effie and John’s marriage. It’s deflating to say the least, and we don’t really get a sense of who Effie is as a person, which saps even more life out of the story. Maybe the story’s timeline should have been expanded: if we saw Effie before the marriage, we’d get a better sense of who she was before the debacle and what parts of herself she lost when she married the bastard.

It makes sense that Effie would be in such a tranquilized state throughout the film, but just because it makes sense doesn’t mean it’s compelling to watch. Fanning is a versatile actor, but here she’s given no room to stretch and only one color to paint with: gray (sorry, I couldn’t resist). Wise isn’t given much to do but be a pitiful, docile man-boy, but Walters and Suchet overachieve as the elder Ruskins, making us hate everything they stand for without being overtly villainous. Thompson plays the most vivacious character in the film, a good-hearted socialite who is the Fairy Godmother to Effie’s Cinderella. She slaps the film awake on the handful of occasions she appears, but once she’s gone we slip back into lousy-land with a quickness.

What’s meant to be a pivotal role but winds up feeling like an afterthought is that of Pre-Raphaelite painter John Everett Millais, played by Tom Sturridge, who falls for Effie and hopes to save her from the clutches of the dastardly Ruskin clan. Millais is too underdeveloped as a character and Sturridge’s performance doesn’t elevate it either. It’s a shame, because the love triangle could have been an interesting, albeit traditional, source of conflict.

On the bright side, the painterly imagery is truly something to behold. Every environment and landscape and costume is richly detailed and builds an absorbing atmosphere that achieves the “time warp” effect all period pieces strive for.  Though not as beautiful as Mr. Turner, which took place in the same time period and in the same place, Effie Gray is nonetheless a stunning portrait of 19th century London with breathtaking shots of the Scottish Highlands thrown in for good measure.

The true story of Gray and Ruskin’s marriage is one of scandal and controversy and resonates with today’s crisis of gender inequity. It’s thought-provoking stuff, but due to Laxton and Thompson’s dirge-like approach, their cinematic retelling of the true events does nothing but make you feel lousy and ready for a nap.

A well iced cake can look quite pretty, but if it’s undercooked it won’t taste very good. Naomi Foner’s directorial debut Very Good Girls has some delicious icing, including excellent performances from Dakota Fanning and Elizabeth Olsen, and plenty of trimming in the way of Demi Moore, Richard Dreyfus, Peter Sarsgaard, Clark Gregg, and Boyd Holbrook, but its under-developed plot and overly sentimental premise leave it ooey and gooey in the middle with not even a sugar rush to make up for its failings.

First premiering last year at Sundance, Very Good Girls is marketing itself as a virginity pact movie, but that’s not quite accurate. Other than a brief conversation held between best friends Gerry (Elizabeth Olsen) and Lilly (Dakota Fanning) at the beginning of the movie, where they discuss first Lilly catching her father cheating on her mother and then the strange notion of parents having sex in general before moving on to their own unappreciated virginity, there is no real plot to become de-virginized. The film is a friendship story, focusing on the strange purgatory that is the summer between high school and college. As if dealing with their various family issues, creepy bosses, and annoying siblings aren’t enough to keep them occupied the girls’ friendship is tested most when they meet David (Boyd Holbrook), a sexy ice-cream vendor at the beach who likes taking pictures. They both take an interest in him, but Gerry, being the more vocal of the two, marks her territory by constantly discussing her interest in him and by pseudo-stalking where he works. Of course, as these things are apt to go, David was much more interested in the darker, quieter, Lilly and seeks her out.

The unfortunate part of love-triangle stories is ensuring that each thread of the entangled relationships is given enough depth. Very Good Girls has an obvious loose thread. David’s pursuit of Lilly and the ease in which she slips into a secret relationship with him is mostly non-sensical. Considering at her day job she has a boss (Peter Sarsgaard) who is consistently hitting on her, you’d think she’d execute a bit more caution when another almost-stranger exhibits what so obviously seem to be shallow motivations for pursuing her. But the film doesn’t claim to be the great love story of the century, so it’s slightly excusable. Tensions build as expected as the repercussions of forbidden romance ensue.

Elizabeth Olsen makes the most of her artistic-minded, self-centered character, but seems a bit too much like an archetype: girls who can attract men, but not obtain them. Equally archetypical is Dakota Fanning’s Lilly, who does her best to get away with wide-eyed staring equaling out to implied depth and understanding, when really she’s just a shy, white-collared girl with some pent-up daddy issues. And winning Most Abused Stereotype is artist David with his sullen ways, who speaks of some day visiting Paris and even reads Sylvia Plath to Lilly before first kissing her.

The film wastes talent in abundance. Even the film’s music, done by Rilo Kiley’s Jenny Lewis, seems to be trying too hard as we hear her familiar voice in almost every scene. There are some questionable wardrobe choices as well, as though the costumer didn’t think we’d understand the essence of the characters with simple words and actions, they needed to be outlandish in their outfits. If they’d been thrown into a film set in the 60s, maybe the completely illogical actions of the characters would make more sense. Unlikely and ill-advised romance, childish secrets and silly pining away for a boy without much to offer — it’s all just so incredibly un-modern.

The locations and lighting of the film do give off a definite summery vibe, and younger female audiences are likely to be drawn to the film’s stars and suggested plot, but like I said, no matter how you cut it, this cake ain’t cooked.

The film is now available on VOD on iTunes and Google Play.

Noah Cowan has only been San Francisco Film Society Executive Director for about ten weeks, but in that short stay his presence has lit a fire under an already lively film community. Last night, at the Closing Night screening of Alex of Venice at the Castro Theatre, Cowan addressed the crowd from the same podium he did when festival began two weeks ago, thanking Programming Director Rachel Rosen and her team for putting together a fantastic lineup of films, thanking the festival staff and volunteers for their hard work, and thanking the audience for partaking in the festivities. His enthusiasm for the future of the festival and SFFS–community building, educational programs, the fall Cinema By The Bay series–was echoed by the buzzing crowd. The future looks bright for the longest running film festival in the Americas.

Rosen then took the stage to introduce the night’s guest of honor, actor Chris Messina (The Mindy Project), whose directorial debut Alex of Venice would close out the festival. Also in attendance were stars Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Don Johnson, and Katie Nehra (who also co-wrote the screenplay), and producer Jamie Patricof. A soul-searcher family drama, the film follows Winstead’s Alex, an environmentalist attorney so preoccupied with work that her husband (Messina), feeling neglected and trapped as a stay-at-home dad, takes a sabbatical from the family, leaving Alex to take care of her aging actor dad (Johnson) and ten-year-old son (Skylar Gaertner).

Winstead is given a lot to work with in the role of Alex, as the material requires her to explore myriad colors of emotion as a mother overwhelmed by a sense of abandonment, isolation, a scattered home life, and a hefty workload. She rises to the occasion and emerges as the film’s greatest asset. Johnson, who’s been enjoying a second wind career-wise as of late, is on the money as usual, but it would have been nice to have seen a few more layers of texture added to his character in the unpolished script, which gets hung up on family drama tropes every time it starts to build a bit of momentum. Messina shows major promise as a director, and with a couple more films under his belt could be great.

Also screening on the last night of the festival across town at Sundance Kabuki Cinemas was Kelly Reichardt’s latest, Night Moves. Jesse Eisenberg (in his second festival appearance, the first being The Double) and Dakota Fanning play Josh and Dena, a pair of environmental activists who, with the help of an ex-Marine accomplice named Harmon (Peter Sarsgaard), blow up a dam in Oregon, and then wade through the dark world of paranoia, guilt, and suspicion that descends upon them following their extreme, costly actions.

Reichardt, lauded for minimalist, meditative pictures like Meek’s Cutoff and Wendy and Lucy, has fashioned a dark psychological thriller in Night Moves, her most accessible film to date. She still gives her actors a football field’s worth of emotional ground to cover with understated, revealing long takes and deceptively deep dialogue, but compared to how hushed her previous efforts were, this film seems to move along briskly. Some of the night time photography is bone-chillingly gorgeous, and this may be Reichardt’s most visually refined film to date, but the script slips off the edge in its third act, providing little food for thought. Still, we’re still left with the thick, atmospheric imagery and fine performances to chew on, which is more than enough to warrant a watch.

I Origins the latest effort from Another Earth director Mike Cahill, takes an excellent, heady sci-fi premise and mucks up the execution, resulting in a disappointingly half-hearted picture. We follow Dr. Ian Gray (Michael Pitt), a young scientist with an obsessive  fascination with eyes and their origins. His life’s work is to end the debate between scientists and religion by proving that eyes are a product of evolutionary development, not Intelligent Design. He takes close-up photos of people’s eyes regularly, and meets the love of his life (Astrid Berges-Frisbey) at a party while using the eye-photo line as an icebreaker. She’s a spiritual soul, though, and isn’t on the same page when it comes to his work in the lab, unlike his lab assistant (Brit Marling), who with Ian unlocks a mystery that could change the world.

Far-fetched isn’t always a bad thing, especially when it comes to sci-fi; unbelievable plots can work as long as the drama is convincing and the filmmaker convinces us to invest in the characters’ plight. Cahill falls short in this regard, beating the spirituality vs. pragmatism drum too loudly stretching the one-dimensional characters so thin you begin to wonder where the story is going with all the scientific jibber-jabber and rudimentary existential debates. After the film’s predictable, overwrought, dud of an ending, it’s unclear what exactly the film is trying to say. What’s the big idea? There’s some poignant statement or metaphor buried underneath the piles of pseudoscience jargon and fleeting moments of serendipity, but Cahill fails to mine it.

In The Motel Life, an adaptation of the Willy Vlautin novel, an intense brotherly love is the only thing keeping Frank and Jerry Lee (Emile Hirsch and Stephen Dorff, respectively) afloat amid a sea of deep-seeded problems. It’s as sad as it sounds, but co-directors Gabe and Alan Polsky infuse their murky dual character-study with dark, underlying beauty that creeps up on you and sticks to your bones.

Frank and Jerry Lee live the life of working-class drifters, living out of crummy hotels around Reno. If Reno is like Las Vegas’ mopey little brother, Jerry Lee is the walking embodiment of the “Biggest Little City in the World”; he’s an alcoholic, glum, disheveled guy with a hyperactive imagination and a kind heart. When he takes the life of a child in a hit-and-run accident, he hits the bottom of his life-long downward spiral. Frank needs to scrape together enough cash to get them out of town before the cops can sniff them out. “All I’ve ever done is fuck up,” Jerry Lee utters to Frank, in despair.

The brothers’ mother died when they were young, and their father abandoned them shortly thereafter. Their devotion to one another is touching, and their rare chemistry is more than fascinating enough to drive the film. With Jerry Lee’s self-esteem and self-worth so low, it’s up to Frank to keep his spirits lifted, which he does by telling engaging, fantastical stories about the brothers leading a more adventurous existence, expressed on screen with eye-catching hand-drawn animation. In a wonderful scene, Frank helps Jerry Lee–who lost a leg in a train accident–take a shower, joking about the size of their respective…ahem…”packages”…claiming Jerry Lee got the good genes. It’s a sorry state of affairs, bathing your one-legged brother in a run-down motel, but the these guys taught themselves to cope, so they find a way to share a chuckle.

Hirsch provides a rock-solid leading-man foundation for Dorff’s more striking, flourished performance. Dorff completely disappears into Jerry Lee, and this may be his finest role yet. He wears his pain and regret on his sullen face, though his repentance is so true and honorable it gives him an air of grace. Garnering our sympathy with this character is no easy feat as, let’s not forget, he’s a hit-and-run offender.

The Polskys and DP Roman Vasnayov (End of Watch) photograph the brothers’ broken lives through a lens that’s just as hazy and smudged as their uncertain futures. It’s winter time in the deserts of Reno, and the filmmakers compose beautiful shots in the snow-blanketed scenery; when Jerry Lee burns down his incriminating car in an empty plot following the accident, the soft orange glow of the flames look ethereal nestled in the serene, heavenly blue and white surroundings.

Aside from the handful of animated respites, the story feels one-note and a little dormant. We watch the brothers prop each other up as they wade through their sorry, mucked up lives, and then the film ends, with a sigh. Actually, the quiet final moments are quite poignant, but the road to get there is so consistently somber and cold that it all feels a bit flat. Dakota Fanning and Kris Kristofferson‘s side characters are well-acted, but add little complexity to the overly-simplistic narrative. The Motel Life feels a little too down-in-the-dumps for its own good at times, but sparks of energy supplied by Hirsch and Dorff illuminate an otherwise dreary film.

Starting tonight, October 3rd and going through October 13th, the 36th Mill Valley Film Festival will be rolling out the red carpet for local Bay Area filmmakers, movie stars, and acclaimed directors from around the world in the gorgeous surroundings of Marin County. From a costume-friendly screening of Return of the Jedi, to live music performances, to screenings of some of the most buzz-worthy films in the cinemasphere, the festival has got a little something for everybody.

Way Too Indie will be there to give you updates on the myriad events and screenings going down at the festival, with photos galore, reviews, interviews, and more.

Here are some of the guests, screenings and events you can expect to see at the festival:

Alexander Payne’s highly-anticipated new film, Nebraska, will be opening up the festival, with stars Will Forte and Bruce Dern in attendance. A father-son Midwestern odyssey from Montana to Nebraska, the movie earned Dern a best actor award at Cannes.

Splitting opening night honors with Payne is Brian Percival, with his beautiful Nazi Germany-set drama, The Book Thief, starring Geoffrey Rush, Emily Watson, and newcomer Sophie Nelisse, playing a young girl who discovers the power of storytelling.

At Middleton, a middle-aged romance between parents of college hopefuls set entirely during a campus tour, is director Adam Rodger’s feature debut and stars two seasoned, excellent actors in Andy Garcia and Vera Farmiga. The film is making its premiere at the festival, and Rodgers and Garcia will be in attendance.Also making its premiere is Beside Still Waters, but writer-director Chris Lowell, who will be on hand to introduce the film.

One of the most highly-anticipated films of the year (especially for us) is Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave, starring Chiwetel Ejiofor. The film, following a free black man in 1841 who is stripped of everything when he’s sold as a slave, is undoubtedly one of the major highlights of the festival.

And that’s just scratching the surface. There will be screenings of Palme d’Or winner Blue is the Warmest Color, John Wells’ August: Osage County, the Matthew McConaughey breakthrough piece Dallas Buyers Club, Jan Troell’s The Last Sentence, the heartfelt Matt Shepard documentary Matt Shepard is a Friend of Mine, Asghar Farhadi’s The Past, a children’s film program, and much, much more.

There will also be a closing night tribute Ben Stiller, who’s bringing with him his new film, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. Also receiving festival spotlights are actors Jared Leto (Dallas Buyer’s Club) and Dakota Fanning (Effie Gray), and legendary auteur Costa Garvas (Capital, Z, State of Siege).

Stay tuned to Way Too Indie for updates on all the action going down in Mill Valley! For more info, visit mvff.com

My previous day at TIFF was originally going to comprise of four films as well, but unfortunately I had to bail out of one film due to pure tiredness (I’ll keep the film’s title unnamed here, but if it wasn’t for my physical limitations I would have stayed since it was good from what I saw). Luckily, I was able to chug through my second four-film day without a hitch, but I’ve learned now that it’s not something I should try more than once.

Night Moves

I decided to start my big day with Night Moves, which turned out to be the worst possible film to choose as a starting point. I’ve been a fan of Kelly Reichardt’s work from what I’ve seen, and was excited to see her approach being used on a genre film. Three activists from different walks of life get together to pull off a dangerous act of ‘eco-terror’: They buy a boat and rig it with explosives, hoping to blow up a dam. Theoretically what Reichardt is attempting here is interesting in its own right. Her stripped down style getting applied to a thriller makes for some neat moments, and the way things unravel so the three characters become corrupted by the same selfish behavior they abhor is a nice development.

The only problem is that Reichardt’s approach is bone dry, sucking out all of the tension and forward momentum. Paradoxically, while the main group (played by Jesse Eisenberg, Dakota Fanning and Peter Sarsgaard who all do their best at understating as much as possible) feel well-defined and realistic as characters, the tone of the film is so distant it’s impossible to feel anything about them. The last time Reichardt took a crack at a genre film it was the western with Meek’s Cutoff, which worked wonderfully. This time I think she simply picked the wrong area to work with. Hopefully next time she’ll be successful again with whatever she chooses.

RATING: 5.9

Gravity

Next up was the film that I had been waiting for since it was announced back in July: Gravity. Alfonso Cuaron spent seven years developing his follow-up to the brilliant Children of Men, and it’s apparent from the start just how much effort went into this film. The special effects are incredible, and it will be impossible to watch this without wondering exactly how they pulled off some moments. So Gravity does deliver in the spectacle department, but that’s mostly it. Granted it’s really good at it, and it’s an easy recommendation, but this is far from the new classic that people have been going on about.

Gravity is merely a well-done thriller that never lets up pacing-wise. Starting right in space with Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock), a new astronaut, and a veteran on his last mission (George Clooney), it takes all but 10 minutes before debris from a satellite crash has Bullock and Clooney flying in opposite directions with nothing to hold on to. That’s merely the start of the many, many problems Bullock encounters while she frantically tries to make it back to Earth alive, and by the end the amount of near-death experiences become absurd (and it drew some laughter from the audience as well).

There really won’t be anything better this year on a technical level, but Gravity is far too basic to enjoy beyond the surface. Bullock and Clooney are terrific in their roles, making the most of the little material they’re given. Bullock is given some backstory to work with, but the film’s suffocating and repetitive pace drown out any emotional impact. I know that what I’m saying sounds very negative about the film, but it’s mostly because I came away disappointed that Gravity did not live up to my high expectations. There are some truly incredible sequences in here, and for a studio tentpole it’s quite original, but don’t expect a masterpiece.

RATING: 7

October November

Continuing my strange tonal shifts in films throughout the day, I went to check out October November. Gotz Spielmann’s last film Revanche blew me away when I saw it years ago, and at the beginning I was expecting more of the same riveting drama when an actress (Nora von Waldstätten) is confronted by the wife of a man she’s having an affair with. That scene turns out to be the only moment where fireworks go off, as the focus shifts to the actress’ sister (Ursula Strauss) who runs a small hotel in the countryside owned by her father.

The two sisters reunite when their father takes a heart attack, and the tensions between them form the basis for October November. Strauss is jealous of her sister leaving to be successful while she was forced to stay at home, and Waldstätten feels like she has no idea who she really is. It’s another existential European drama, and Spielmann really doesn’t seem to know how to get these issues across. The majority of October November is a no-stakes drama until the final act sees the two daughters waiting for their father to finally pass away. Despite being superbly shot and acted, there really is very little to get interested in. There’s no doubt that Spielmann is still a mature and terrific writer/director, but he seems to have invested in subject matter that returns very little.

RATING: 6

Under the Skin

I ended my day with Jonathan Glazer’s Under the Skin, and what a way to close off my long weekend at TIFF. I’m not over the moon like some people who have seen this, but I can’t blame them for being so ecstatic. Glazer is a master of style, and his 9 year absence seems to have made his images even more striking. The film’s first half, which simply follows Scarlett Johansson’s alien character around as she seduces men to a horrific fate, works as an excellent mood piece. Glazer has created some shots that will probably stick with me more than any other film I’ve seen here, and Micah Levi’s score is one of the best of the year by leaps and bounds.

It pained me a lot when Under the Skin didn’t coalesce into something wholly terrific for me. The second half of the film, in which Johansson gains human qualities and gets hunted down by her alien superiors, is a step down from the beautifully expressive and original first half. Glazer seems to have a hard time getting across what he wants to say at some points (his goal, to show Earth through an outsider’s perspective, wasn’t exactly successful in my eyes), and while Johansson is great her role is too enigmatic to make any of the final acts resonate. At times horrifying, beautiful and strange, Under the Skin is a classic case of a film not adding up to the sum of its parts.

RATING: 6.9

Next up:

Ben Wheatley’s hallucinogenic trip through A Field in England, and the best film I’ve seen at TIFF.