To be honest…I did not enjoy this movie. At all. I watched the trailer and it made very little sense; and then I watched the film itself and the confusion I felt after watching the trailer was only heightened. It was disappointing, because of the previous two movies directed by the same person, I’d enjoyed Midsommar…and while I didn’t really enjoy Hereditary to the same extent, it still wasn’t like this movie.
There were some interesting parts of this movie. For instance, there was a tiny hint of mystery in the dreams that Beau kept having, where he was watching his mother and another boy arguing. The boy looked identical to Beau at that age, but Beau was watching the two of them from where he was sitting in the bath…at least, that’s what it seemed like from the camera angles. And that element of mystery could have been explored much further…but at the end of the movie, I was left wondering what in the world had happened; and was that dream actually a memory, or was it just included to raise confusion even more?
Another thing I found quite interesting, although I did feel the scene went on far too long, was when Beau is watching a play in the forest and fantasises that he’s the main character in the play. He obviously feels an affinity to the person in the play who cuts off his own chains, but although that could have been a truly symbolic moment, any possibility of that is lost with the over-long scene of the man separated from his family and trying to find his way back to them. And that could probably have had a better effect of drawing both Beau and me as a viewer in if there wasn’t the narrator constantly saying, ‘You will….’
The movie was, on the whole, very confusing. I definitely felt that it could have been condensed down a lot – it really didn’t need to be three hours long and I was fairly bored watching it; enough that I kept getting my phone out to check what the time was. I wasn’t even really sure what genre the movie was supposed to be; and even though Beau was meant to be the main character, I didn’t really care about him…or indeed any of the characters in this movie.
I really can’t recommend watching this movie. It wasn’t engaging enough to keep my attention throughout and it was far too long when it could have been so much shorter…and potentially better, without all of the extra filler.
This isn’t a movie I have any interest in watching again.
Ink of Blood 