what a mess of a film.
more unbalanced than the main character.
shareYour reasoning of this?
Really, I'm intrigued.
Where is everybody?
MovieChat Forums > The Voices (2015) Discussion > what a mess of a film.
Agreed. It seemed like the director wasn't sure what she was going for.
Like two movies with the same actor got merged together.
The first half is horror/comedy then the second is a mix of horror and comedy/horror. This may sound weird but it doesn't work at all. Changing point of views as an excuse to change the look from stupid-happy to depressing is really out of place here.
The choice was to watch the film from the point of view of Reynolds but then it just changes for no reason. What's the purpose of this?
The purpose is so that we get an idea of how confused he really is. We always see things from his point of view (apart from when Anna Kendrick goes into the apartment), it changes when he takes the pills and so wakes up seeing how things truly are. It scares him so much that he decides to stop taking the pills and go back into fairytale land. I think the director knows exactly what she's going for, she needs to change from 'stupid-happy to depressing' in order to show us exactly how big the contrast is between his fantasy world and the real world. With just the fantasy world we wouldn't be able to compare it with what's really happening so we wouldn't see how serious and dangerous his illness is, and if we only saw the real world then we wouldn't see what he's seeing and how desperate he is to stay in it, so we wouldn't have any emotional connection or sympathy to him.
The huge distinction between his over the top happy world and the depressing, dark real life is supposed to make you uneasy and uncomfortable. It's supposed to feel like a mess, out of place, to give you the strongest impression of how messed up he is.
I think this film is beautifully done.
I Disagree. It completely changes the tone of the film. If her purpose was that she should have mixed it from the start. The abrupt change makes you feel indifferent.
Also any person with basic understanding could sympathize with the character since the beginning.
The problem here is that the film starts as a balls to the wall comedy and then it gets to dark/horror territory without any comedic element. It doesn't work. And then the ending credits are pure comedy as well.
I think she does it later on in the film to intensify the feelings of discomfort that it gives the viewer. Even from the beginning it always felt a bit off, you knew something was wrong but because they didn't touch on it for a while, and this happy, colourful fairy tale view was shoved in your face, you didn't understand what it was, so you just had this unexplained feeling of discomfort. I love that they did this because it's almost like you're feeling irrationally nervous then BAM we suddenly see what it really looks like, and it's so bad that it truly shows you how ridiculous and extremely unrealistic the cartoon life is. We even have such a short, quick view on the real life situation of his apartment that when it goes back to his happy world it makes it all the more disturbing.
I totally get what you're saying about anybody having a basic understanding would have sympathized from the beginning, but I really think that the director did it so that we'd empathize with Jerry, not just sympathize. We saw what he saw when he saw it, we're experiencing the same thing as him so we feel his confusion and terror with him instead of having a realistic viewpoint of what he's going through so that we feel sorry for him but don't feel how he's feeling. He's so very confused himself, she wanted to make us feel this same confusion about what's real and not.
I think that everything you guys are saying you have issues with was done deliberately by the director to give us this disturbed, uncomfortable feeling. Fair enough if you don't agree, but maybe the fact that you don't agree just shows how much it affected you so she achieved what she wanted!
Although I really don't like that it's ever described as a 'comedy', it's far more than that as is only has a sitcom, 'funny' side to fully express how dark his life and mind really is. The end credits were a bit silly but I'm putting that down to the fact that since he's dead/ dying all links to the real/ dark/ depressing world have gone and he's free to completely give himself up to the happy place that he's been so desperate to cling onto the entire time.
You give a good explanation.
However, I understand the director's intentions by changing the mood and everything. I don't think it's very effective.
In my opinion it would be better if the film had the on/off changes more often from the start. It just has one on/off and that makes it feel like two different films. That's how i feel anyway
Thank you! :) That's fair enough, I see how having the two different styles would make the film seem a bit disjointed and so less effective!
Think this is the first discussion that I've had on here that didn't end in an argument, wohoo!