Post by Dracula on Feb 8, 2021 20:36:33 GMT -5
Pieces of a Woman(1/22/2021)
Pieces of a Woman certainly starts promisingly. If you’ve heard about the film at all you’ve probably heard about its bravura opening scene, a single extended shot in which the protagonist (played by Vanessa Kirby) goes into labor while her husband (played by Shia LaBeouf ) desperately tries to get the midwife over to them for their at-home birth. That sequence really works and the film’s director Kornél Mundruczó brings a lot of the visual ingenuity he showed in his earlier Hungarian film White Dog to the scene, but unfortunately that proves to be a pretty high peak that the film, and particularly its screenplay never really lives up to. Make no mistake, there are elements through the whole movie that are quite good. Mundruczó continues to shoot the film with style and there are some strong performances by Kirby and other co-stars like Ellen Burstyn, but the film never quite gets a grip on what it’s supposed to say about grief and it really becomes increasingly melodramatic as it goes. The film is never really sure whether it wants to be a generalized film about grief or if it wants to be some sort of weighing of how to place blame for bad situations. It reaches something of a nadir late in the film with a truly groan inducing court room scene that goes well beyond your typical Hollywood film into “it’s unorthodox but I’ll allow it” ridiculousness and really kind of negates a lot of what came before. This is a frustrating movie, it has the look and feel of something great but its script just can’t sustain it. It’s unfortunate.
**1/2 out of Five
Pieces of a Woman certainly starts promisingly. If you’ve heard about the film at all you’ve probably heard about its bravura opening scene, a single extended shot in which the protagonist (played by Vanessa Kirby) goes into labor while her husband (played by Shia LaBeouf ) desperately tries to get the midwife over to them for their at-home birth. That sequence really works and the film’s director Kornél Mundruczó brings a lot of the visual ingenuity he showed in his earlier Hungarian film White Dog to the scene, but unfortunately that proves to be a pretty high peak that the film, and particularly its screenplay never really lives up to. Make no mistake, there are elements through the whole movie that are quite good. Mundruczó continues to shoot the film with style and there are some strong performances by Kirby and other co-stars like Ellen Burstyn, but the film never quite gets a grip on what it’s supposed to say about grief and it really becomes increasingly melodramatic as it goes. The film is never really sure whether it wants to be a generalized film about grief or if it wants to be some sort of weighing of how to place blame for bad situations. It reaches something of a nadir late in the film with a truly groan inducing court room scene that goes well beyond your typical Hollywood film into “it’s unorthodox but I’ll allow it” ridiculousness and really kind of negates a lot of what came before. This is a frustrating movie, it has the look and feel of something great but its script just can’t sustain it. It’s unfortunate.
**1/2 out of Five
