Audience Member
An impressive, emotional performance by Gemma Arterton. In my opinion, she carries the movie and makes Dominic Cooper seem comparatively wooden.
Rated 3.5/5 Stars •
Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars
01/28/23
Full Review
Audience Member
I wish the ending was clearer.
Rated 3/5 Stars •
Rated 3 out of 5 stars
01/29/23
Full Review
Audience Member
This movie was pleasing to the eye to watch. The cinematography was nice, and Gemma is a beautiful woman. However, the movie itself was garbage. It starts with multiple sex scenes where her husband wants and has sex with her and all the while she looks like she's enduring a root canal. While in the missionary position, she pays her husband no mind, and seems incredibly interested in the condition of the ceiling. She avoids touching her husband with her hands, and cries somewhat furtively during the act. This happens like three times in a row (we got it the first time, guys). On each occasion, upon the conclusion of the act, she turns her back to her husband and buries her head in her pillow, weeping a few more tears. Ok, she's not into him. We get it. The problem is they casted the role of the husband horribly, and the script does the film no favors. The man is young, handsome, and has the body of a professional soccer player. Making matters worse, he speaks to her nicely and is a communicator. When he sees her crying, he addresses the situation kindly, asking her what's wrong, and says several times that he just wants her to be happy. When she has her first crisis moment, wanting to take an art class, he actually says he understands and that it would be fine. A real monster, this guy, huh? At worst, he's a husband that's unaware of his wife's inner feelings. That's pretty much Every Man Ever. Of course, she NEVER TELLS HIM how she's feeling. All these scenes she just lays there stone-faced, shedding her tepid tears and repeatedly burying her head into the pillow. This goes on for half the movie. It's absurd. Nearly an hour in we're like "where's her problem with this marriage?"
Worth mentioning that along with the male model husband, she has a beautiful house, 2 lovely, attractive children, and 2 nice cars to drive. Yeah, she's pretty much living the dream, especially in the UK where these things are quite expensive and many people don't have them so conveniently at their disposal. Perhaps they should have had her life actually suck a little bit? Maybe had the husband act abhorrently at the beginning of the film? At least then we'd sort of believe the whole Distraught, Lonely Wife Who Feels Trapped in the Prison that is Her Horrific Life thing. Instead the film gives us a woman with a handsome, fit husband, who's interested in his wife sexually, and willing to communicate with her. She's literally married to a unicorn, with a good life surrounding her, but we're supposed to believe she's miserable. Makes perfect sense.
I suppose this paradox makes the film "deep". Ok. Whatever.
But wait, it gets worse. Later on in the film she's then tending to her children during the day, and during a moment of their childish behavior, crying and such, she proceeds to GO OFF on them. She essentially tells them that they suck, and screams at them to fuck off. Nice. Any ounce of empathy we might have had for this character at this point has now been completely eviscerated.
Suddenly, it's as if the writers realize that they need to pull this movie out of its horrific nosedive of absurdity. We finally get a moment of the husband being a jerk. She spills a glass of juice on the breakfast table and hubby proceeds to call her a cow and tells the kids that "mommy is stupid" for spilling the glass. It is here that the title of the movie finally materializes. She runs upstairs to grab a bag of clothes and her ID, runs outside, jumps in one of their two cars, and drives off. Yup, she just bails... leaving her two kids behind. Mother of the Year material right here! Anyway, she flees to Paris and, get this, meets a man that day at an art museum and of course, has sex with him that same day! He told her he was single, and didn't have any kids. She TELLS HIM THE SAME THING about herself! It's moments later that they're having sex. Right after their act concludes, the dude's wife calls on his cell phone. Busted. He confesses to our leading lady that actually he isn't single, that he's married with kids. She immediately gets angry and hurt, telling him she never wants to see him again. Of course, this is the woman that fails to mention her OWN FAMILY that's back in London. You can't make this stuff up. With that, she feels guilty and slinks back home, where she immediately resumes the miserable expressions on her face. Fade to black.
Complete garbage. If we were supposed to feel sorry for her, or empathize with some sort of depressive state, this movie totally failed to accomplish that.
Rated 0.5/5 Stars •
Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars
02/02/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Bored unhappy housewife at the beginning and at the end, no transformation, just a sad person. Very depressing.
Rated 1/5 Stars •
Rated 1 out of 5 stars
01/23/23
Full Review
don d
This is a powerful even riveting film. I couldn't take my eyes off Gemma Arterton as Tara; she is more than pretty: she is stunningly beautiful in an understated way (so unlike her photograph on this site). I am always with her emotionally, always attuned to every move of her eyes and mouth. The film, with a wonderfully appropriate piano background, is understated throughout, especially the final scene that echoes the opening, suggesting that Tara's escape to Paris is only a temporary respite from her ordinary life as a wife and mother.
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
03/31/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Slow and boring story. Really not worth watching.
Rated 1/5 Stars •
Rated 1 out of 5 stars
01/21/23
Full Review
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