Flick #03 of CINEMONSTER's MannVanuary Trois.

My List of Films that I'll be watching (or have watched) plus links to those Reviews can be found here:
Slappy McGee's 3rd MannVanuary - 2024.

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What a godawful piece of work this is.

So badly written that I spent most of the boring 2 hours just laughing out loud at the genuinely horrible dialogue.

The writers are completely clueless on what life in the deep country is like, and it is obvious all over this script and in the film itself. Made much worse because one of the writers is the director Julian Higgins.

The main character is a crabby, bitter old lady who is supposed to have lived up on the mountain in a cabin for many years... but acts like she just arrived there. Stupid character because of this stupid writing. She does everything wrong, escalates all the bullshit like she's never been there before, much less lived there for years. Then we are supposed to feel sorry for this cranky busybody when she causes everything to go sideways.

Fuck that.

As an audience, we see all the stupid shit she does and all the bad will she generates... and we actively root against her. It's her own damn fault - well, it's the dumbass writers' fault for making this character so unlikable and stupid. Blame must be passed to the writers, as they are the real idiots here.

Then the movie gets pretentious as fuck and the character once again does stupid shit that causes things to escalate. I mean, I guess the writers keep pouring it on wanting us to REALLY hate the main character - who is acted very well by Thandi Newton... but even she can't save this character she's trapped in.

The thing is... when the movie starts (and it is sloooooooooow to get started)... we really WANT there to be some justified bad shit to happen so we can see some sort of revenge/retribution flick where Thandi gets to kick ass. But as she starts everything and is such a bitter ol' biddy, we just slap our forehead and say "Okay, I guess you're just a dumbass who hasn't learned a thing living up in a tiny town on the side of a mountain, even though you are a college professor and former police member, you don't even know the locals or anything during your years of living here and act like you just woke up yesterday in the snow and want to fight everyone."

Just a ridiculously poor writing and filmmaking effort.

Several good actors in the cast around Newton as well. All betrayed by a filmmaker who is completely out of his depth.

Waste of everyone's time including mine.