I'll confess - I couldn't stand watching the second half of the film, so my review is based upon the first 45 minutes.
Spider is a grim, dismal inmate of a grim, dismal halfway house in a grim, dismal London. The cinematography shows this beautifully, the actors step up to the plate and deliver, nicely.
As a long-time fan of Cronenberg's films, I was really looking forward to enjoying this film. I'm fond of think pieces, and certainly don't need an explosion or chase scene every 5 minutes to keep my attention.
In the first 45 minutes, there are three notable events - we see that there's lots of rust in the house's water supply, a cheap doxy in the pub flashes a breast at Spider's younger self, and the young Spider walks in on his mother while she's wearing a slip. The only interesting character is a fellow inmate at the halfway house, who has about 5 lines in the first half of the film.
At that point, I simply was bored - I didn't care about what happened, if anything ever did. The ending may be brilliant, but I couldn't invest any more time in such a dismal film to find out. Pacing has never been an issue in any of Cronenber's other films, many of which border on brilliance - but in this, it's a flaw I found to be fatal.
Spider is a grim, dismal inmate of a grim, dismal halfway house in a grim, dismal London. The cinematography shows this beautifully, the actors step up to the plate and deliver, nicely.
As a long-time fan of Cronenberg's films, I was really looking forward to enjoying this film. I'm fond of think pieces, and certainly don't need an explosion or chase scene every 5 minutes to keep my attention.
In the first 45 minutes, there are three notable events - we see that there's lots of rust in the house's water supply, a cheap doxy in the pub flashes a breast at Spider's younger self, and the young Spider walks in on his mother while she's wearing a slip. The only interesting character is a fellow inmate at the halfway house, who has about 5 lines in the first half of the film.
At that point, I simply was bored - I didn't care about what happened, if anything ever did. The ending may be brilliant, but I couldn't invest any more time in such a dismal film to find out. Pacing has never been an issue in any of Cronenber's other films, many of which border on brilliance - but in this, it's a flaw I found to be fatal.