The backstory, so to speak, that gets revealed in the last 5 or 10 minutes of the film, in my opinion (and please note that this is just my opinion), breaks a type of trust that should stay between the audience and the filmmaker.
I've seen this kind of thing before -- and I don't remember the name of the film, it was a horror film that did very poorly at the box office -- but the deal is that it breaks a trust, so to speak. I honestly can't remember the name of it. It was creepy, in a way that was psychologically manipulative (in my opinion), trying too hard. There is a difference between watching a horror movie and being sucked into the tube and becoming part of one in real life. A BIG difference.
One can look at a movie like Natural Born Killers, for instance, which has significant amounts of violence, death, and blood, but it kind of numbs you to it -- there is a way that the violence can be made artistic, so to speak. You're not the one afraid, but you feel certain feelings towards the actors -- you're an audience member, not a victim of violent crime. There is a difference.
This movie goes along fine for the vast majority of it. It's an intriguing study of amnesia, and it leaves you guessing, curious, and interested. It's an interesting subject for a movie, like Memento, for instance.
The thing with the horror flick I mentioned earlier whose name I don't remember (a psychologist and her family being held hostage in a cabin), is that the trust gets broken relatively near the beginning of the movie, so you can turn it off and not watch it.
In this movie, the trust is broken in the last 10 or 15 minutes or so. The backstory is revealed, and it's literally nauseating. It's not enough of a plot, or there's not enough emotional depth to the deal.
Overall, I'd have to say it's not that bad -- amnesia can be an interesting thing to study. For instance -- what if a couple had some differences, got divorced, each remarried, and the one of the two had amnesia? Perhaps those differences would seem more insignificant or something. There's "nice" ways to reveal things and so on.
I don't recommend this movie, because it saves the reveal of a nebulous, unpleasant backstory until the very, very end. There are reasons to watch movies, and there are way to turn violence and bloodshed into an artform of sorts.
So, in other words, the ending sucks, and it violates a certain psychological distancing requirement (in my opinion) that violence should have (as in Natural Born Killers, for instance). It's the nebulous, seemingly gruesome backstory reveal that is the problem here.
I've seen this kind of thing before -- and I don't remember the name of the film, it was a horror film that did very poorly at the box office -- but the deal is that it breaks a trust, so to speak. I honestly can't remember the name of it. It was creepy, in a way that was psychologically manipulative (in my opinion), trying too hard. There is a difference between watching a horror movie and being sucked into the tube and becoming part of one in real life. A BIG difference.
One can look at a movie like Natural Born Killers, for instance, which has significant amounts of violence, death, and blood, but it kind of numbs you to it -- there is a way that the violence can be made artistic, so to speak. You're not the one afraid, but you feel certain feelings towards the actors -- you're an audience member, not a victim of violent crime. There is a difference.
This movie goes along fine for the vast majority of it. It's an intriguing study of amnesia, and it leaves you guessing, curious, and interested. It's an interesting subject for a movie, like Memento, for instance.
The thing with the horror flick I mentioned earlier whose name I don't remember (a psychologist and her family being held hostage in a cabin), is that the trust gets broken relatively near the beginning of the movie, so you can turn it off and not watch it.
In this movie, the trust is broken in the last 10 or 15 minutes or so. The backstory is revealed, and it's literally nauseating. It's not enough of a plot, or there's not enough emotional depth to the deal.
Overall, I'd have to say it's not that bad -- amnesia can be an interesting thing to study. For instance -- what if a couple had some differences, got divorced, each remarried, and the one of the two had amnesia? Perhaps those differences would seem more insignificant or something. There's "nice" ways to reveal things and so on.
I don't recommend this movie, because it saves the reveal of a nebulous, unpleasant backstory until the very, very end. There are reasons to watch movies, and there are way to turn violence and bloodshed into an artform of sorts.
So, in other words, the ending sucks, and it violates a certain psychological distancing requirement (in my opinion) that violence should have (as in Natural Born Killers, for instance). It's the nebulous, seemingly gruesome backstory reveal that is the problem here.