First, a confession: I'm not really in a position to review this film (which I caught this evening on Bravo), because I found it so deeply and frequently annoying that I spent as much time surfing away from it as watching it.
I will make one observation, however. Fairly late in the film -- which is set in the earliest days of photography -- Minnie Driver's character is shown making a portrait of two young women. Driver -- ostensibly a talented photographer -- removes the lens cover (there being, of course, no mechanical shutters at the time) for the requisite VERY long exposure. While the image is being exposed, she essentially tells her giggling subjects to say "Cheese." Now what do you think the finished photo would look like under such circumstances? A messy, worthless blur? Bingo.
Virtually nothing in this film -- set design, presentation of early photo methods, character motivation -- made any sense to me. But, as I said, perhaps I missed something as I feverishly tapped away at my remote.
I will make one observation, however. Fairly late in the film -- which is set in the earliest days of photography -- Minnie Driver's character is shown making a portrait of two young women. Driver -- ostensibly a talented photographer -- removes the lens cover (there being, of course, no mechanical shutters at the time) for the requisite VERY long exposure. While the image is being exposed, she essentially tells her giggling subjects to say "Cheese." Now what do you think the finished photo would look like under such circumstances? A messy, worthless blur? Bingo.
Virtually nothing in this film -- set design, presentation of early photo methods, character motivation -- made any sense to me. But, as I said, perhaps I missed something as I feverishly tapped away at my remote.