It is a shame, indeed. There were a few things I would have liked to see fleshed out a little more, but all in all this was a pretty spectacular composition. I would also offer that I did not find Lily's monologues/dialogues as out of place as you did. Part of the reason is because it was set some decades ago. If you watch older movies, you'll see it was once more common for people to speak with a little more detail, formality and particularity than they do now. Plus, this film had an austere tone and I think it would have been jarring to stray too far from that in the on-screen speech. I actually thought the TV bit was great because it was one of those moments where she was placed squarely back into just being a normal young person in this job situation (expressing excitement that there was a TV around when she was told there would not be).
As for the hate, I think part of the problem is that Netflix is not very good about helping users understand what sort of movie they're about to watch. Unless you're searching by genre, you usually aren't even told what the genre is. If you search for horror or thrillers, you will be met with various titles whose quality or characteristics cannot be necessarily be inferred from the log line and cover image. The versions of their app that show a few stills from the movie are a little better about this, but barely. Using the ratings to judge is not very helpful either, unless it's rated 5 stars. I say this because virtually every movie that earns 5 stars on Netflix is unequivocally great, but there are plenty of high quality titles hidden among the 1, 2 and 3 star ratings. Why is this? Because different people like different things, and with such little information to go on, and so few titles available to stream, many people outside of a movie's intended audience will inevitably watch, when they had no chance of liking it to begin with. This particular title falls victim to this problem in that it is probably being viewed by many people who heavily favor blockbuster type fare. There's nothing wrong with that; I love blockbusters and all sorts of other movies. Slow, subtle movies like this are not for everyone, but when "everyone" is, in a sense, tricked into viewing it, then there will be a lot of disappointed folks. The opposite also happens, though, as I can attest that I've watched plenty of movies on Netflix where the little information presented to me made me assume the movie would not be very good, but I happily discovered a gem hiding in the pile.
Alas, just as The VVitch and other slow, out of the ordinary titles have done, this will fall victim to being seen by the wrong audience. And if history is any indication, many of those audience members will be so incensed at having been tricked into watching something outside of their area of taste that they will tear it up, and even suggest that those of us who like it are somehow incorrect, flawed or just pretending to like it for some unexplained reason (there's already some of that happening right here on this board!).
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