TrueHello Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.
Reno Rangan This is a very charming title if you are a fantasy film fan. Good looking film posters too from different languages for different regions. In a way, that was my reason to watch this, but anyway I would have seen it sooner or later being a cinephile. It was not a popular production, though the cast and storyline interested me more. They have categorised it as a modern day fairy-tale. But it was missing something. Something cinematically convince to its viewers. My best guess is 'stylish presentation'. Yep, it was a similar kind to 'Amélie', ' Citizen Dog' et cetera. It was not based on any book, but would have been a better format for such tale.It was like those titles I mentioned in the previous paragraph which meets 'The Secret Garden'. Sadly, not well explored in its topics. For instance, the romance part was half-boiled. Funnily, I never knew the film trying to achieve that part. Of course it had a boy and a girl. In fact, three boys against one girl. But which path the narration is taking was well preserved till certain length of the film. Surely somewhat it was a fairy-tale, but most probably not like the one you would be anticipating. Especially in the initial stage, it bettered. Only later on it had started to fall back as a casual film.The tale of a children's novelist. She is an orphan. Now being an adult, living independently in London, while working in a library. The story of her prior to land in the orphanage was a mystery. So basically she aspires to be a children's writer. Yet to write her first book. It was her normal lonely mechanical life, but one stormy day a trouble comes her way. The next door grumpy old man picking her for a verbal fight for several reasons and one of it were the neglected backyard. Now she has got a countdown to fix the issue. So the remaining the narrative focused on her undertaking, while the other side of her life, she's trying to get a close to an inventor.❝Life and nature, it's just waiting to burst out anywhere it can, seeking light, getting on with it.❞Definitely it should have been better. Not for just the cinephiles, but even normal people would feel that way. I don't know this filmmaker, but his direction was good, definitely not the writing skill. I think that's where it had failed mostly. It is still an above average, though if the screenplay, including dialogues was done better, then it would have been another level. Particularly, I did not like the transition between the scenes, events and the characters. One of the lines said at the final stage, after the story had taken a twist was poorly penned. That was the godfather of all the clichés, should have avoided at any cost.By the way the actors were good. From Jessica Brown to Tom Wilkinson and other two did their respective roles finely. The synopsis says it is about an author, but the film explored different way. The entire film given preference to gardening. It took phases and were decent too. But at final stage it takes a twist by giving a convincing reason. But if that's what the whole story was relied on to surprise its viewer, then that's did not do its job as expected. Overall, the writing should have been improved to give the film a better chance to do well with the film goers.Nonetheless, it is a watchable film. Especially I think women, family audience could enjoy it better. I would say the character Bella carried it all the way, despite Alfie jumped into the main storyline strongly in a mid way. The basic story was good enough. Bella is being a loner all her life, how suddenly everything has changed around her was the purpose of the film. Jessica Brown was a perfect choice for the role. She looked more beautiful than ever. Watch it for her, for the cast. Only a few people would feel they had seen a great film. It's just a good British film.6.5/10
p-seed-889-188469 A strange little movie this but it will no doubt appeal to lovers of the "British Gem" movie genre. Personally I find "British Gem" the 2 most feared words in the English language (or possibly first equal with "Human Resources") but evidently enough movie goers find them appealing enough for the British to keep churning them out. That's fine with me as long as I am warned in the movie's promotional material so I can do something more enjoyable, like plunge my hand into a vat of boiling oil.Some reviewers have compared this movie to Amelie but I wouldn't agree. While the first few minutes of the movie attempts to give some bizarre back story to explain how eccentric the heroine (Bella) supposedly is, for the duration of the movie itself she acts completely normally, apart from a touch of OCD. Her apparent need to be orderly certainly plays no part in the story, in fact it is completely contradictory to the way she lives, with her garden in chaos, which is somewhat confusing. Amelie was strong and always in control and her quirkiness was pivotal to that movie. Bella is never in control and she is not inherently quirky, she is just lost, unfulfilled and drifting. However it is true that both movies rely on the appeal of an attractive actress who has a certain quality that one would be hard pressed to accurately define - perhaps "instantly lovable" is somewhere near.As others have noted the "plot" is completely predictable and the "characters" are all the usual suspects for this kind of movie. It is all a bit of fluff and I doubt it will be challenging "War and Peace" for a place in World literature any time soon.For all that I enjoyed this movie more than I expected and this is entirely down to the actors, who generally handled their fairly thankless and undemanding roles with subtlety. In the wrong hands this movie could very easily have tipped the scales from just teetering on the edge of working into something horrific, and it is a credit to the cast that they pitched it just right.I saw this movie with a group and the comments ranged from "the worst movie I have ever seen in my life" to "quaint" and "exquisite". My view is somewhere in between.
guaire-96199 Clichéd and unrealistic characters with a plot(?)that limps along dragged even further back by dialogue that an 8 year old could improve upon. Like standing in front of an empty fridge desperately wishing for it to fill. You'd gain more from watching your own toenails grow. May enjoy this if you're on serious drugs or terminally stupid. Writer needs shooting before he can damage cinema goers even more.
