Road to Oppenheimer: Part 1
In the months leading up to Oppenheimer, I have decided to watch all of Christopher Nolan's filmography and briefly give my thoughts about each one as a sort of preparation for his 12th directorial outing.
It's often said that greatness comes from small beginnings, which is a phrase that I feel encapsulates my thoughts on this film quite well. Despite its minuscule budget and absurdly short runtime (68 minutes!), that special Nolan quality is still felt throughout every aspect of the film, from his signature twists and time dilation to his meticulously crafted characters and unfortunate low sound quality. The movie is also paced very well, with meaningful reveals and revelations keeping the story moving at a breakneck pace.
Despite all of these qualities, Following suffers from one big problem: it's forgettable. While almost every Nolan film is remembered for some big action setpiece or an insane, mindbending reveal, Following kind of just comes and goes, not leaving much of an impression mere days after a first or second viewing. Of course, this isn't a film-killing issue, but when compared to Nolan's future filmography, Following certainly falls a bit short.
THE CAWPINE OF ‘FOLLOWING’
WRITING: 7
ATMOSPHERE: 6
CHARACTERS: 5
PRODUCTION: 6
INTRIGUE: 5
NOVELTY: 6
ENJOYMENT: 6
The Good:
Christopher Nolan's low-budget debut feature is a fascinating look inside the mind of a future major player within Hollywood blockbuster filmmaking. Despite its low production values, the story of Following already features elements that will later become staples in Nolans' films, such as protagonists with unusual professions or fascinations; memorable dialogue; nonlinear storytelling and a multi-layered plot. Especially the way how a seemingly dull and unimaginative plot slowly turns into something much more complex and sinister is classic Nolan and feels very ingenious even in his very first feature.
The acting isn't particularly memorable or interesting, but the dialogue is pretty sharp and well-delivered most of the time. Jeremy Theobald ranges from a bit stiff to fine, while Lucy Haw is probably the most natural of the actors. Christopher's brother John Nolan is great in a minor role as a police officer.
While the technical side of the film is hardly up to par with Nolan's later work, I like some of the quick-cut editing and shaky camera work that give the film a grounded look.
The eerie, howling score used in several scenes is an effective mood-setter, almost giving those scenes a Hitchcockian atmosphere.
I love it how the script initially makes no sense, but how you come to realize that some of the seemingly non-related scenes must be from another point in time, and how the nonlinear structure of the story slowly opens up to you as the pieces of the puzzle begin coming together.
The Bad:
Despite many memorable pieces of dialogue, the very dialogue-heavy script also contains long and clunky conversations, and I’m not sure if that’s down to the writing or the acting.
There's a strange, cheap-sounding thriller film soundtrack oddly spread out over several sequences where they don’t seem to fit. Interestingly though, some of that music closely resembles the soundtracks herd in most later Noland films.
This film never opens up to me properly. It's two guys talking to each other about pointless things and breaking into random people's homes. Somewhere, there is a deeper level of meaning with this, but I just cannot find it.
The Ugly:
So there was a criminal named Cobb before that other criminal named Cobb. Wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey...
CAWPINE RATING: 5.86 / 10 = 3 stars
Well... nothing special. I watched this movie because it was directed by Chris Nolan but I can't recommend it. In a lot of ways, it is a much simpler version of Memento and I never really got into "Following". For me, the newest Nolan flick (Interstellar, at least at the time of writing this is his newest work) and the oldest (Following) are not worth watching. Skip them and spend the time much better by re-watching e.g. his fantastic "Dark Knight" trilogy or Identity!
A solid debut from Christopher Nolan who of course brought us the latest Batman films "Memento" and "The Prestige". This is a short low budget exercise that looks feels and likely was a learning experience for Nolan. The story itself about a voyeur and a burglar is good but there's not enough time to develop much in the way of feelings towards the characters. I guess this film has a noir stylization to it but I think its look is mostly just cheap. It reminds me of another director's early effort "Pi" by Darren Aronofsky but its not as interesting as that was.
Following was a pretty good directorial debut by Christopher Nolan. He got some nice performances from inexperienced actors, which is made even more impressive when you consider the tiny $6k budget and the fact that the entire thing was filmed solely on weekends because all the actors had full-time jobs. Nolan sure likes to mess with non-linear plot structures but used it to even better effect in his follow up, Memento. It still wrapped together really nicely though. It'd be cool if he returned to something relatively lower budget and similar to this later in his career.
a fun, twisty, turny caper.
It's impressive to see what Nolan was capable to do with a so low budget. And here in this film we can already see that he had some ideas to Memento (second best movie by Nolan, in my opinion).
You have short time? You want to watch something good? Watch this movie. It is a good way to start Nolan’s world. This is my 2nd but still thinking relationship between Batman on the door on that movie and the triology.
Christopher Nolan's extremely low-budget, high-concept debut is one nasty character. Cerebral and verbose, it lulled me into a trance with long, casual chats about the practice of breaking and entering as a social experiment, then suddenly smacked me with a sharp jerk of the wheel that skewed everything. Appropriate, effective use of hand-held cameras lend the screen a disheveled, voyeuristic look that had me averting my eyes out of guilt and embarrassment once or twice.
A very small, casual cast knows that's what Nolan is after, and plays it up beautifully with sudden piercing glares that often shoot straight through the lens. The concept of non-linear narration may be starting to feel a bit played out at the moment, but when used with care and efficiency it can still be a powerful, effective means to a surprise end - and this is a great example of that. An unusually brief run time (70 minutes) may seem too short at a glance; worry not, it'll stay with you for days.
What an amazing directorial debut for one of the best in the business. Christopher Nolan loves his non linear storytelling and no one does it as good as him. It's crazy to think how they did this for only $6,000 and only on weekends.
Edit: Second time viewing and first with the chronological order. It is an interesting story but not quite as good as the original version. The nonlinear timelines really elevates this to great. Still this is very impressive with what they had to work with.
Review by saundrewBlockedParent2016-08-17T00:51:01Z
When I realized that I love Christopher Nolan, I had to pickup a copy of everything that he's made (only missing Quay documentary at the moment, in process). This movie was made for only $6k. He really turned out something awesome for such a low budget.
I think you also see what he does with storytelling. He almost always has a big twist in the plot that makes sense and is wonderful. I remember being a little unsure about this movie until I got towards the end when stuff started to make sense. This was a great start to his career.
The look and style feel very much the same as well. I kind of like the low budget look sometimes too. This smaller 16mm resolution fits the story well. A major plus side to this movie is also the fact that it is only a bit over an hour long.
I say that, because I don't think the story could have drawn out much longer. I'm really glad they didn't try to stretch it just for standard run time. This isn't a movie that I think everyone will enjoy. It isn't filled with great actors or action scenes. While I do see some really flat moments and coldness, I certainly enjoy checking it out again from time to time.
Also, I did watch his first short 'Doodlebug' as well again. That is quite the interesting student film, that's for sure. Check it out if you can.