It is not the feel-good family movie it was advertised to be. For those with a certain sensibility, it is much better.
Interesting. It looked like humorous zombies and the kind of Tim Burton-esque I don't like. I will reconsider.
Also, the soundtrack is amazing.
Cool! I'd never even heard of it!
There's grief and PTSD and loneliness and pain and survivor's guilt, all weighing heavily in those long white halls and nearly empty rooms. And there's Florence, debunking frauds as a form of exorcism that never works.
Yes. The teacher with the ruined lungs, hacking into his handkerchief as he quotes Tennyson's dying Arthur (never more, at any future time, delight our souls with talk of knightly deeds), already imagining the spectre of another war: "These boys must be strong . . . Stronger than we were." The boys with their wary circles of alliance, their isolation; Malory is not tugging heartstrings when he calls them "as good as orphans." (I like how they flock around the car like wild little animals, staring in at Florence.) Maud, who I love the film for because it does not demonize her. And Malory himself—I wrote to handful_ofdust, "I don't think it can be accidental that it is Malory's wounded thigh that interferes both times with his coming to Florence's aid . . . he keeps gouging the past into himself like a tribute to the dead, so he's powerless when the living need him. It's not that he's completely useless . . . But he's crippled himself deliberately, as if it would never be relevant; as if his life is such a static, hard-patterned thing, he'd never again need to sprint. Nothing would ever affect him that much. I wondered at the end of the film if perhaps now he would let himself, too, begin to heal."
(Ellipses because of trying to avoid honking spoilers, seeing as this is a film that actually benefits from not knowing everywhere it ends up. I suppose I can put back in the examples I took out if you don't care and no one's likely to read this far down.)
Everyone is haunted; everyone is hurt. You could remove the supernatural element and it would be a different story, but it might not feel all that much different to the characters.
no subject
Interesting. It looked like humorous zombies and the kind of Tim Burton-esque I don't like. I will reconsider.
Also, the soundtrack is amazing.
Cool! I'd never even heard of it!
There's grief and PTSD and loneliness and pain and survivor's guilt, all weighing heavily in those long white halls and nearly empty rooms. And there's Florence, debunking frauds as a form of exorcism that never works.
Yes. The teacher with the ruined lungs, hacking into his handkerchief as he quotes Tennyson's dying Arthur (never more, at any future time, delight our souls with talk of knightly deeds), already imagining the spectre of another war: "These boys must be strong . . . Stronger than we were." The boys with their wary circles of alliance, their isolation; Malory is not tugging heartstrings when he calls them "as good as orphans." (I like how they flock around the car like wild little animals, staring in at Florence.) Maud, who I love the film for because it does not demonize her. And Malory himself—I wrote to
(Ellipses because of trying to avoid honking spoilers, seeing as this is a film that actually benefits from not knowing everywhere it ends up. I suppose I can put back in the examples I took out if you don't care and no one's likely to read this far down.)
Everyone is haunted; everyone is hurt. You could remove the supernatural element and it would be a different story, but it might not feel all that much different to the characters.
[edited for failing italics]