This movie confuses me. Well, not the movie, but the intent and purpose of it.
The first half makes a very good and poignant illustration of the main character's stressful emptiness as a perfect housewife homemaker by interacting with actually working people to make it happen, and on the other her attempts of keeping up interest for the social obligations for the role. Also her experiences with medical care and overly patriarchal institutions is a strong statement, although at times bordering to overblown. Tensions and expectations build up for the second half and then... nothing really of interest happens. Neither in the story nor the movie. It keeps sorta going and that's about it.
It's a stark collision of bold satire of the eighties successful people lifestyle, and could keep the movie going either by shifting the lens to the presented alternative, or by going with it wholeheartedly. Unfortunately it tries to do both and hence does neither. The lens is dropped and so is the gas.
The second half and the characters journey has a distanced pathos as if everybody involved got tired of being part of the movie, not much different from the main character trying to keep up her attention in the first half.
And this is where it leaves me confused. I get the story of the main character, she has my empathy and she follows a plausible sequence of decisions and consequences. What I don't get why the story is told like this. Was it cowardice that failed to tackle the second half? Or was it intended as a agenda piece for alternative medicine and lifestyle? But even if so, surely this watered out new age pseudo scientific holistic approach with lukewarm cult tendencies, as boring as it is, will not convert anyone?
Often when I read other people's critiques I think they are overthinking it. Maybe I'm the one doing it this time.
Shout by manicureVIP 4BlockedParent2023-09-01T15:51:50Z
A wealthy, bored housewife from the suburbs of Los Angeles transitions from chronic apathy to an allergy to modern life itself. I must admit that even during the opening credits with the nighttime subjective shot in the car and the pseudo-Badalamenti soundtrack, I was already drooling. Unfortunately, the film meanders with the same concept for too long without ever really taking off, awkwardly flirting with the bizarre and satire in a manner that is too restrained for my liking. The direction is static and sterile, but never to the point of feeling as unsettling as intended. In other words, a passable film with a strong concept that could have been executed better.