Life is filled which strange momenten, which sometimes make you wonder if coincidence really exists. The simplest of decisions could decide the rest of your life, without you even realising. That is the message Life Itself want you to feel in your heart, but in order to do so it uses a butchers knife instead of a scalpel to get there.
The start of the film is strong. Samuel L. Jackson does a voiceover and describes various character using a lot of (dark) humour. It doesn’t take long though before the movie introduces the concept of the unreliable narrator. It is something which the film uses extensively. It is something which can work as Fight Club or a show like Mr. Robot have proved. But here it takes it too far and fills the story with so many horribly depressing moments in the lives of the various generations that show up that after a while you no longer believe what is being told.
The movie has an impressive cast, starring Oscar Isaac, Olivia Wilde, Antonio Banderas and Annette Bening and they give solid performances, but even they can’t make you forget all the coincidences that take place. That simple comes down to the weak script.
After watching Life Itself I googled to find out if this might be based on a biographical book, because if it would have been I might have given it the benefit of the doubt. Unfortunately this isn’t the case, making everything that happens feel forced. If I want to watch movies about how decisions made by one generation might affect the next one, I’d rather watch The Place Beyond the Pines or if I want to see how situations are linked to each other Babel is my preferred choice. This movie has its emotional moments, but there are simply too many of them to make you quietly really feel something.
[score5]
I heard this was a really BAD movie. The guy who wrote and directed the film got extremely defensive and attacked a lot of the critics who trashed it (and they were right in doing so) claiming they’re just a bunch of dumbass white males. Wow, what a moron. Women critics reviewed the film and thought it sucked. Man, fuck Dan Fogelman and fuck “This is Us”. Fuck that piece of shit show.
I never heard about that, but as a filmmaker you should know that people can be very critical. And if many people are negative they might be right. I respect if he thinks it is a great movie, that is his opinion, but no need to attack others.
You should give it a try to form your own opinion about it š
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