First reactions


Slow, meandering, with minimal music. Sort of felt like a student film to me.

John Cho is very good and I enjoyed the newcomer co-star as well.

Bit of a Lost in Translation vibe.

Nice to see several mentions and thoughts about architecture.

Was a little unclear about what was going on with the mother character.

Overall liked, but would like to see it be tighter -- fewer and shorter scenes.

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The mother was possibly relapsing with her meth issues, but John Cho's and Haley's characters both shared the predicament of having the burden of dealing with parents in two different stages of life. Haley had just begun her life, so he encouraged her to go pursue her dreams, while coming from the perspective of middle age, his former crush (Parker Posey) pushed him to deal with the responsibilities to his father even though he was distant and not really there for him.

Cool film, but I'd only recommend it for people who love art house type films. It's like reading an anti-novel, a lot of the story is found in the negative space between scenes.

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Hey, thanks for the reply!

Is there any other kind of film? ;) But don't forget architecture fans; there's a lot of it here.

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The closest one similar is one you've probably seen... Lost in Translation... but I'll post here if I think of one.

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Um, I think you misunderstood my joke...

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sounds boring

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Would be for 99% of viewers. I'd only recommend it to hardcore art house film fans.

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This was better than Lost in Translation IMO.

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Quite possibly. I re-watched LiT a couple years after it came out and it seemed the most notable thing about it was the opening shot of her butt. Of course there's the Bill Murray rat pack stuff, but you can get pretty much the same in old SNL episodes.

Wow, I had forgotten I started this topic here. Would have sworn it was still on the old IMDB site.

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I re-watched LiT about a year ago. Doesn't age well. Some scenes verge on what you'd say in 2019 are racist, or at least not politically correct. I didn't like the film when it came out and still don't.

Yes the shot of ScarJo's butt is the best thing about it.

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Interesting. Not that surprised. Its director has had a very unusual career arc.

Right? Glad you agree. Not just the butt itself of course, but the choice to start an entire film in that unique way.

Have you seen the Columbus director's new project? Sounds like a pretty groundbreaking storyline: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8633464/reference

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I really liked it but definitely flawed in places but I liked it more then Lost in Translation, but from reading synopsis about the film I was expecting more a romantic film in same tone as Before Trilogy where we follow two lonely characters around discussing architerture and other things in life and with them eventually falling in love.

But it's more in vein of Lost in Translation, where two people (one older, one younger) meet up in a lonely place and both have issues in their lives and both end up healing one another and bringing the best out of each other, with some sexual tension but really it will never go there.

I thought John Cho was excellent. And I don't think Haley Lu Richardson has come close to her performance in this film in anything else, a bit of shame as she's really great in this. Always great to see Parker Posey in anything (if this film was made 20 years before, she'd be perfect for Casey role.) Some beautiful camera work here and there.

I would have cut down on some of the scenes that Casey/Jin weren't together in. The film is at it's strongest when they are both on screen together. I would have preferred if they knocked a few years onto Casey's age and maybe made her graduate with PHD but keep the story of her caring for her mother to really leave and meets up with Jin and they fall in love. But the film really wasn't aiming for that (I think they should take romance tag of this film personally).

7/10. A solid debut.

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