This movie is made with the explicit or calculated intent to "bait" the Film Festivals, Awards and may be Oscars, it is designed in a way to check all the boxes that Academy voters traditionally appreciate. The entire movie is a case study in Award bait-you've got the tragic backdrop, the over-the-top forced subtle emotional moments, the "complex" moral decisions, and the classic tropes of sacrifice, tradition, and liberation. The movie has understated bravado and subtle theatrics but in a way that it's not too obvious or exaggerated. There is covert intensity in the characters which was carefully hidden and expressed in a less direct manner. The entire movie is a case study in Oscar bait-you've got the tragic backdrop, the over-the-top emotional moments, the "complex" moral decisions, and the classic tropes of sacrifice, tradition, and liberation.
But none of it feels real. The characters are just cogs in a machine designed to win awards, not fully realized individuals. The emotional beats are set up and knocked down like dominoes. Every plot twist, every dramatic moment, feels less like a natural progression and more like a checklist.
The filmmakers are obviously hoping for an Academy Award nomination, which is why they pack this film with as much "important" drama and "timely" conflict as possible-hoping that the Academy voters will eat it up with a spoon. But the movie never feels truly earned. Instead, it feels like it was carefully designed for maximum emotional manipulation. It's Oscar bait for sure, but with about as much subtlety and nuance as a sledgehammer.
There is a bizarre union of contempt for a particular society and an impressionable mindset in the reviewers who grossly overrated this boring movie.
Lately, I hear many wealthy people and people who are obsequious to wealthy or the so called classy ppl, who have no interesting pastimes relying on these kinds of ventures to distract themselves from the monotony, as if seeking meaning or excitement in the most superficial ways.
