Artsy movies are such a crap shoot for me. I love some of them, but others are just slow and weird. This kinda looked like it could be the later, but I was still drawn to it, especially because Robert Pattinson has rather proven himself as a legit actor post-Twilight. As I often do, I decided to rest its fate on A-List. If it came to an AMC theater, I’d go. I even passed on a chance to see it at a different theater with a q&A with Pattinson. But it came to the dine in, and I doubled it with La Llorona (even had the same waitor at both, which was a lil awkward). It might have been better if it didn’t end up there.
It’s actually an artsy scifi, where we find ourselves looking in on a lone man in a distance space craft caring for a baby. Those first few scenes of them are so captivating, and it raises so many questions. Who/what/when/where/why/huh? All the usuals. But as it went on, the answers didn’t really satisfy. We got some flashbacks that show how they got there, but they were hard to understand. It also felt like a lot of ideas were thrown out, but there were so many plotholes. I can forgive plotholes if the story is moving, but the story wasn’t moving. And I can forgive a stagnant story if I know what it’s trying to say, but I didn’t know what it was trying to say. Sooooo, I was bored.
I did some research after and found out some of the ideas that writer/director Claire Denis was trying to convey. It became a little clearer, but still felt like she was just throwing them out there without much purpose or conclusion.
I think there’s potentially a good movie in the concept. I just think that it needs to focus less on the concept and more on the characters.
High Life – \m/ \n