Love and Other Impossible Pursuits

Before I even watch this movie I sift through my list of “enjoyed movies”, I come to realize there are quite a few of them that star Natalie Portman. But looking at the cover makes me think I may not enjoy this movie as much as her other screen performances. Only time will tell, 98 minutes to be exact.

Well, the movie was good, in the way Indian food that makes you shit embers is good. Even though the acting is great-ish, and the narrative will take you on a roller-coaster of love, loss and anything else you would expect from a heartstring plucking movie that has the word love and a picture of a kid on the front cover. It has infidelity, pregnancy, a dead baby and its resulting heart ache, divorce, re-marriage and in and amongst it all a lonely kid. So if you are planning to rent this movie, think carefully, read the lady well because this movie will either get you soppy make-outs or an early night with Vaseline and a dishcloth called Miley Cyrus. I mean the story just keeps piling on tragedy after tragedy. After a while you can’t help but sit back and think “really, I mean more, but wait… oh no there’s even more”. It gets to such a point of deep emotional desolation, then in steps a montage and makes a turn for the better. Proof again that a montage trumps all else as a narrative device. I can just see it now, a company offering life changing montages. “Do you need to build a house, have a montage? You know that term paper that due tomorrow, have you tried a montage?” Everything else I the movie is explored in painful details but the healing, the getting better, that’s mere frames and moments. The personal growth was trivialized; as a result I was robbed of a satisfying catharsis. The end is like a Tiny Hello Kitty cupcake, cute but unsatisfying. I know the movie only has a limited amount of time to present the story to us, but I felt cheated. Was going to make a few orgasm jokes, but I think I have sufficiently covered my disappointment, and if you respond by saying, “that’s what she said”, I will reach out from this text and bitch-slap you across your troll-fag face. Just saying. If anyone is looking for me, I’ll be watching the Short Film intro for The Darjeeling Limited by West Craven called Hotel Chevalier. All I am saying is, Natalie Portman, nude, Booya.

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