Sometimes I can see why someone would "hate" a film that I love. This time I just don't see why anyone would dislike this film.
It's a simple, unpretentious, lovely film. I've recommended it to several people (male and female) and they've all loved it.
The soundtrack's lyrics hint at a very different film, with more of the predictable sex/possessiveness/anger/painful character arc thing that we usually see, and perhaps people are missing when they criticize this film.
I found it refreshing NOT to see those things, to know perhaps that a decision is wrenching but without the melodrama. And even more refreshing is a script that never once beats us on the head with information, but lets us "hear" the characters not only in the songs (in fact the lyrics are not "on the nose" as they generally are in musicals but instead simply add nuance, flavoring the script) but in what they don't say, and in the choices they make without exposition and explanation.
I didn't notice any of the technical flaws people have mentioned. Any lack of "polish" in the camera work only added a hint of realism to me, as if it were my eyes instead of the camera watching this vignette, as a warmly invited guest. Little time is spent showing us unnecessary views of the city, or vistas to long after. It could be anywhere in the world, because the world is reduced, for a few days, to what's important to these two people, and we fall for them as they fall for one another.
The film does have an ending, it's not left up in the air (contrary to some comments here) - but it may not be the one everyone wishes for, or has been conditioned to expect.
More than one person, including folks commenting here, have said the same thing: What a lovely film . . .
It's a simple, unpretentious, lovely film. I've recommended it to several people (male and female) and they've all loved it.
The soundtrack's lyrics hint at a very different film, with more of the predictable sex/possessiveness/anger/painful character arc thing that we usually see, and perhaps people are missing when they criticize this film.
I found it refreshing NOT to see those things, to know perhaps that a decision is wrenching but without the melodrama. And even more refreshing is a script that never once beats us on the head with information, but lets us "hear" the characters not only in the songs (in fact the lyrics are not "on the nose" as they generally are in musicals but instead simply add nuance, flavoring the script) but in what they don't say, and in the choices they make without exposition and explanation.
I didn't notice any of the technical flaws people have mentioned. Any lack of "polish" in the camera work only added a hint of realism to me, as if it were my eyes instead of the camera watching this vignette, as a warmly invited guest. Little time is spent showing us unnecessary views of the city, or vistas to long after. It could be anywhere in the world, because the world is reduced, for a few days, to what's important to these two people, and we fall for them as they fall for one another.
The film does have an ending, it's not left up in the air (contrary to some comments here) - but it may not be the one everyone wishes for, or has been conditioned to expect.
More than one person, including folks commenting here, have said the same thing: What a lovely film . . .