The Neon Bible

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Alain E I am not sure what is the point of this movie. It attracted Gena Rowlands and I decided to watch it. Briefly, an adolescent in a smal rural town lives with his mother and an aunt in the 1940s. He operates quite aimlessly. His mother has collapsed after her husband was killed during WWII. When the aunt, who was the caretaker, leaves to try to revive her singing career in Nashville our hero finds his mother alone mortally wounded at their home. He doesn’t seek help and as he is burying her body a person from the State comes to take over. Our hero shoots him dead and boards a train to nowhere. The End. Do things like this happen? Probably. Do we need a movie about it? Not in my opinion. The actors operate well and there is decent color cinematography. Rated 1.5/5 Stars •  Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars 09/06/24 Full Review Audience Member Gena Rowlands' luminous performance is the only saving grace in this Terence Davies' excruciatingly somnambulant adaptation of John Kennedy Toole's first novel based on an adolescent's dreary memories in 1940s Bible Belt America. Rated 2/5 Stars •  Rated 2 out of 5 stars 01/22/23 Full Review Audience Member For better or worse, The Neon Bible is yet another trip into the childhood of Terence Davies. Although this is a literary adaptation, the story is so similar to his previous work (cruel father, childhood bullying, idealized mother figures, abusive nature of religion) that the film he's made out of the source material is nearly identical to the three that preceded it. Unfortunately, it pales by comparison due to a couple of stilted performance, but given that it's a Davies film there are several elements that work wonderfully, particularly his signature stylistic flourishes (an emphasis on windows, symmetrical shots, dream-like movement between scenes, poignantly romantic imagery). While not his best film, there's still enough here to qualify The Neon Bible as a solid reiteration of Davies' previous work that stands on its own, albeit in a less compelling fashion. Rated 3/5 Stars •  Rated 3 out of 5 stars 02/10/23 Full Review Audience Member Lyrical, beautiful and amazing view of the past and more. Rated 4.5/5 Stars •  Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars 02/16/23 Full Review Audience Member Gena Rowlands awesome (as usual) performance alone makes this movie worth seeing Rated 5/5 Stars •  Rated 5 out of 5 stars 02/03/23 Full Review Audience Member A difficult film. No hopeful narrative arc here, more a sense of continuing harshness and hopelessness as David grows up in his reactionary small town community. Painted in a series of vignettes which build a larger picture of a hard life in the South. Interestingly there are no black faces here, not one. Gena Rowlands owns this movie. Rated 3/5 Stars •  Rated 3 out of 5 stars 02/14/23 Full Review Read all reviews

The Neon Bible

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