MovieChat Forums > Veronika Decides to Die (2015) Discussion > yes, you can make a good movie with a ba...

yes, you can make a good movie with a bad script

posted 15 years ago by lepixma
14 replies | jump to latest

In film school, teachers always said: "you can’t make a good movie with a bad script". I believed them without a doubt until today, because "Veronika Decides to Die" can be the exception to the rule. For my point of view the movie has a very bad script (we must be fair with Larry Gross; you can’t make a good script based on a self help book).

But I think that the script is the only lack of this film: “veronica Decides to Die” is a very stylistic film, the photography is good, the music is great, the director creates beautiful images and a poetic atmospheres and the performances are very good (In this movie Sarah Michelle Gellar proves that she can act and give us her best performance ever). Besides she is beautiful; time is erasing her childish look and is letting us to see her new mature and enigmatic beauty).

Give this movie a chance before you judge.

[–] kcla 15 years ago

Definitely, the script is pretty horrendous but everything else, especially the score, is good.

[–] Siamois 15 years ago

I happen to be a story-first movie fan. If the story doesn't grab me, I'm probably not going to enjoy a film unless it is filled with stunts, explosions and humor and I shut my brain down :)

Also, I've read many comments and reviews of the film praising the acting and I am surprised. Gellar was pretty one-dimensional, IMO. She's always had a limited range and I felt she was outside her comfort zone here.

But yeah, the script is awful, juvenile and predictable. I only realized afterwards that it was based on one of Coelho's crappy book. I guess it explains the early ratings being through the roof.

[–] kcla 15 years ago

I've read many comments and reviews of the film praising the acting and I am surprised. Gellar was pretty one-dimensional, IMO.

She started out strong but then she made the character too cutesy in spots. That may have been in the script, though, it's hard to gauge. After the opening 15 minutes, it became quite muddled.

[–] ShalanTD 15 years ago

limited range? suicidal girl, vampire slayer, porn star, daughter of a gangster, evil psycho bitch, scooby doo character... she's done a lot of different stuff and done it well even if the movies themselves haven't been great (although this one was).

[–] RyanCShowers 15 years ago

I agree with everything you said about the film except for the script. The script is masterful. Like the book, I think it's a hit or miss.

http://i994.photobucket.com/albums/af66/Hours_2002/weinstein.jpg

[–] erika_gomez 15 years ago

I don't know about the script, but I must wonder if you've ever read the book. It's not a "self-help" book, as you say. Paulo Coelho is a wonderful writer, and his novels are usually very haunting. They deal with issues that most people choose to ignore or look over, yes, but they are by no means self-help books.

I've read this book, and although it was a few years back, I found it deep, intriguing and beautiful in its own strange way. You should read it too, before you decide to criticize a novel.

[–] temporaryname21 14 years ago

Yes. Troll 2 was amazing.

Its a jungle out there.

[–] 15 years ago

[deleted]

[–] cggrajo 14 years ago

veronika decides to die is a book by paulo coehlo, so i assume if you say this was a bad script you just insulted the book and its author.

[–] lia699 13 years ago

it's not a self help book. its a beautiful book Paulo Coelho. don't comment on something you have no idea about.

[–] yusef-ghanima 11 years ago

the book is very good but the script for the movie is awful and very different from the book, and the director is awful too. i would like to tell them that next time they want to make a movie they buy a copy of the book, and take a huge dumb all over it, because this movie is big fat piece of crap.

[–] ancamg 11 years ago

I haven't read the book, but in the movie Veronika is told she had a heart attack, that her heart is damaged and has developed such a large aneurism that is inoperable. With this diagnostic we see she can breath without a problem, climb stairs, have sex with no sign of heat failure. That would give her shortness of breath, oedema, and she shouldn't be able to do physical activity the way she did. I found it stupid from a medical point of view, and I hope the book is much better.

[–] damamirlo 10 years ago

You know it, Veronika supposedly does not. I don't know how the American educational system works, but in my country many people wouldn't suspect. Of course, smart people who can handle their emotions would ask for a second opinion by another doctor. But I'm going to suppose Veronika doesn't start exactly healthy.

[–] aquakenn 10 years ago

I guess I wasn't expecting much. I know what it's like to want to die. I didn't feel it in the movie. Netflix reviews (as well as my own feeling) that the doctor was lying. I guess the script was rather flat, I enjoyed it. Can you imagine telling a person (suicidal or not) that they has only a week or two to live? The movie also reminded me of Valerie's Harper fight against inoperable brain cancer and was told she had a month or two to live. She lived her life with new adventures. It's been over a year now and she is still going strong! The movie also reminded me of the song, "Live Like You Were Dying".