Boy, was I disappointed.
If you have not seen this movie, drop everything and rent it immediately. Trust me.
Almost anything I say about this movie would be a spoiler, so this is going to be short. Acting: superb. Cinematography: even better. Writing: amazing. Directing: Very good, some minor discontinuity and some showboating, but generally solid. My only major complaint is the audio mixing was horrid - I had to turn on subtitles to hear the actors over the way too loud background music, and the song selection seemed to have been done at random. However, the choral direction and chorus was excellent. Thirty-seven repetitions of William Blake's Jerusalem set to hymn music never got old. And I hatehatehate hymns, so that's saying a lot. All through the film, I kept wondering where I had seen the main character (Helen Mirren) and looking at her pages on imdb, the answer is "everywhere".
Don't miss the deleted scenes, and save the "Naked Truth" featurette for last.
On a tangent, I found the poem Jerusalem downright absurd, having been in that city often, and England a couple of times:
And did those feet in ancient time And did the Countenance Divine Bring me my bow of burning gold: I will not cease from mental fight, |
