Nicole Kidman is the name that serves as the draw for this movie, and she shows less emotion in this than she does in virtually any other movie I've ever seen her in. She is the grieving widow who doesn't seem particularly upset about losing her husband, a relatively bad mother, and eventually falls for her husband's brother recently arrived from abroad. That takes about a week (maybe less).
Matthew Goode is the uncle from afar who comes in to assist the family now that his brother has died. He also shows virtually no emotion and is given affectations that are intended to be quirky and disconcerting at the same time. He reads as a psychopath almost immediately, but the manner in which the movie is filmed kind of make that seem normal.
The speed at which the movie slogs by is impressively slow. It's filled with seemingly pointless additions to the story like the fact that Mia gets a new pair of shoes each year, sharpens her pencils in a manner consistent with OCD, and she is can hear better than normal.
The movie is more about style than substance. As a result, the story has twists that make no sense and sections that don't seem interesting. There's a lot of downtime in between scenes, in the middle of scenes, and when scenes are just starting to build. It's a whole lot of nothing for most of the movie.Direction was crap
Story was blah
Acting was stoic
Dialog was crappy
Pacing was awful
0.25/5
