Another large disappointment of '08 for me. What looked like it could have been a visceral, original and extraordinarily acted story of human decay ended up being a clichéd and relatively typical story of...well, human decay. As a study of how we deteriorate as a study given a pandemic that disables one of our vital senses, it works on quite a few levels. It shows how quick we are to snap and break apart from our normal routine of living and fall into our basic needs for survival; in terms of both those infected and those who aren't. Then within the quarantine building set up for those infected, we see how some work hard to keep things in order and preserve the living conditions for the group as a whole, while others resort to absolute anarchy in their own greedy quest for a better living for themselves with no concern for anyone else. I also thought that seeing how the marriage between the uninfected Julianne Moore and the infected Mark Ruffalo progressed throughout the course of the film was quite interesting.
That's about where it stops working for me, though. The film takes far too long to really get going, with needless scenes showing various people discovering that they have gone blind and then the final act drags on for what seemed like an eternity. Ultimately, everything is just too obvious for me to be impressed and not wait for the next typical scene to happen. Everyone starts to go blind, people don't understand, chaos ensues, more people are infected, they're quarantined and treated poorly, madness breaks out within the quarantined, etc. It's like they just took out the pandemic movie handbook, changed the disease to blindness and played out every step like they were just reading out of the book. It was depressing, really.
Another thing the film did that annoyed me quite a bit was how they left so many things unanswered. How was the infection started? Why were some, particularly Moore's character, immune? Why was Moore the only immune person with the decency to stay with the blind while everyone else in the world abandoned them? Surely there were other husbands and wives that were immune and would have stayed with their lover? Why couldn't Moore have taken the gun from Bernal's character the second he got it? Why did they just go along with him being in charge just because he had a gun, when they had someone who could see? And the most infuriating question that was unanswered and served as the basic reason for all of the chaos that broke down within the quarantine ward: Where the hell did Gael Garcia Bernal's character get the gun? They never explain it and just expect us to go along with it. It's practically insulting how little is explained while they go through such a typical routine. And then it runs through so many gratuitous and unnecessary scenes to show us this decay of human nature that they are so persistent upon, even though it's quite obvious that it has happened. I don't need to see closeups of people walking through piles of feces in a hallway or an attempt at showing nine women being basically raped in an artistic manner, and then one of them getting killed for it.
Though most frustrating of all has to be the ending. The entire film had me sitting and waiting for the scene at the end when everyone suddenly sees again for no apparent reason, and there it was slapping me right in the face like an idiot. Disease comes out of nowhere and infects people with no explanation, society falls apart, disease ends and everyone is happy. What a waste of time. I do have to admit though that the art direction is extraordinary. I'll be surprised if that isn't in my lineup at the end of the year.
Acting-wise, Ruffalo is the only one who was fantastic for me. He gives a shatteringly devastating performance that kept me intent on watching all the way through. Alice Braga was also quite good, but that's about where the talent ends. Julianne Moore is god awful. I've always considered her a bad actress because she seems so unnatural and forced all of the time, and this is the perfect example of that. It's a real shame that something so promising ended up being so bad, but I've come to expect it from this year.
That's about where it stops working for me, though. The film takes far too long to really get going, with needless scenes showing various people discovering that they have gone blind and then the final act drags on for what seemed like an eternity. Ultimately, everything is just too obvious for me to be impressed and not wait for the next typical scene to happen. Everyone starts to go blind, people don't understand, chaos ensues, more people are infected, they're quarantined and treated poorly, madness breaks out within the quarantined, etc. It's like they just took out the pandemic movie handbook, changed the disease to blindness and played out every step like they were just reading out of the book. It was depressing, really.
Another thing the film did that annoyed me quite a bit was how they left so many things unanswered. How was the infection started? Why were some, particularly Moore's character, immune? Why was Moore the only immune person with the decency to stay with the blind while everyone else in the world abandoned them? Surely there were other husbands and wives that were immune and would have stayed with their lover? Why couldn't Moore have taken the gun from Bernal's character the second he got it? Why did they just go along with him being in charge just because he had a gun, when they had someone who could see? And the most infuriating question that was unanswered and served as the basic reason for all of the chaos that broke down within the quarantine ward: Where the hell did Gael Garcia Bernal's character get the gun? They never explain it and just expect us to go along with it. It's practically insulting how little is explained while they go through such a typical routine. And then it runs through so many gratuitous and unnecessary scenes to show us this decay of human nature that they are so persistent upon, even though it's quite obvious that it has happened. I don't need to see closeups of people walking through piles of feces in a hallway or an attempt at showing nine women being basically raped in an artistic manner, and then one of them getting killed for it.
Though most frustrating of all has to be the ending. The entire film had me sitting and waiting for the scene at the end when everyone suddenly sees again for no apparent reason, and there it was slapping me right in the face like an idiot. Disease comes out of nowhere and infects people with no explanation, society falls apart, disease ends and everyone is happy. What a waste of time. I do have to admit though that the art direction is extraordinary. I'll be surprised if that isn't in my lineup at the end of the year.
Acting-wise, Ruffalo is the only one who was fantastic for me. He gives a shatteringly devastating performance that kept me intent on watching all the way through. Alice Braga was also quite good, but that's about where the talent ends. Julianne Moore is god awful. I've always considered her a bad actress because she seems so unnatural and forced all of the time, and this is the perfect example of that. It's a real shame that something so promising ended up being so bad, but I've come to expect it from this year.