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Reviews
Past Lives (2023)
Disappointing and lacking in depth
I expected more depth to this film, but found it disappointingly shallow, and at times quite cheesy. For example, there is a scene where Nora is at an artist's retreat and she pours a cup of coffee, and walks into the garden cradling her coffee in a contemplative manner. She then sees her future husband walking towards her through the garden for the first time, and it is like a cringey advertisement for a coffee brand. It was basically an American romantic movie disguised as something more artistic and complex. I also found her husband's character quite weakly developed, as I found it hard to believe that anyone would be so understanding about their wife going to meet up with her childhood sweetheart. There was a lot of potential to develop aspects of the story, for example the references to Korean culture and past lives, or to make the characters a little more human so that we could connect with them in some way other than just watching them walk around tourist spots in New York and talking about uninteresting things while saying how much they missed each other. I find it really puzzling that the film has received so many reviews praising its realistic representation of romantic relationships, because to me it didn't seem realistic at all.
Al-hadiya (2020)
Two dimensional and stereotypical
I'm really puzzled by all the glowing reviews. I found the film to be overly simplistic and predictable. Of course there are good Palestinians who love cuddling their daughters and who work hard to buy gifts for their wives, and bad Israeli soldiers who abuse their positions of power, but the characterisation was so stereotypical and two-dimensional that it didn't challenge the viewer. I didn't believe the characters. I felt it was written by someone who has never really lived in Palestine, because it didn't seem realistic.
Gone Too Far (2013)
Disappointing
I found this film disappointing. There was so much potential, but it seemed very cliched and forced. The character of Armani in particular was very unbelievable and poorly written. She seemed something like a mixed race version of the Little Britain character, Vicky Pollard! The racist comments she made towards black people as a mixed race girl in particular seemed very far-fetched.
I also found the setting very confusing. I believe it was meant to be set in Peckham, but many of the scenes were in East London outside the famous tower blocks in Bethnal Green. I guess to international viewers they wouldn't notice that, but to Londoners watching it, who know the difference between South London and East London, it makes it seem disjointed and confusing. It's a small detail, but attention to detail is important. If this is a film about Peckham why not film it in Peckham and highlight the African and British communities there? This leads me to my final comment that it is not really clear who the audience is or what the point of the film is.