Monday, February 21, 2011

Movie Monday: Redwoods

Yes, I'm still in my self-imposed exile from the web. Thanks to the miracle of scheduled posting, however, I can still bring you this week's Movie Monday review, 2009's Redwoods.

From IMDB:

An unfulfilled gay man in a stagnant relationship finds his life changed forever when he meets a struggling writer visiting the Redwoods Country.

I really, really hesitated before reviewing this story. Before I could review it I had to ask myself whether I wanted to use this forum only to highlight decent movies, or whether I should give my honest opinion on the stinkers, too.

My decision on that point should be readily apparent when I recommend you pretend you've never heard of this movie. Really, the only halfway decent thing about it is the scenery, and there isn't nearly enough of that to justify sitting through this. The dialogue is terrible. Brendan Bradley, who plays the unfaithful partner, is wooden and stilted throughout the movie. He and Matthew Montgomery have zero chemistry. Bradley's character, Everett, has a son with his partner. The son, Billy, has what appears to be a sensory integration disorder, such as autism or Asperger's. The relationship Everett has with Billy could have been explored more deeply, could have been one thing that actually gave Everett's character some life and realism, or made him even vaguely sympathetic. Instead, it fell completely flat.

And after all that, there isn't even a satisfying ending. On the subject of star-crossed lovers, I'm a great believer that a happily-ever-after isn't an absolute necessity - IF your story is strong and the acting is stellar. However, others have portrayed this idea to a far greater degree of success: Brokeback Mountain is evidence that an ending need not be happy, to have tremendous impact or to cap off a truly great movie.

This? Is not Brokeback Mountain. My rating is, "Well, there's two hours of my life I'll never get back".

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