Premise: A separated couple start seeing the ghost of their dead son in their old house.
On paper, The Keeping Hours is a movie that should leave me an inconsolable mess, balled up in a corner weeping. It pulls from aspects that work like gangbusters in about a dozen other movies I've seen. I don't have a kid, but the idea of losing a child sounds like the worst thing in the world. I don't have a spouse, but the idea of that relationship falling apart because the pain is too great sounds awful too. I'm huge on second chance movies. The part that destroys me every time watching About Time is when Tim sees his father knowing that it's the last time. Getting a second chance with a dead child hits in virtually the same spot.
Hell, I can even tie this back to The Leftovers. The mother of the dead child in this is played by Carrie Coon. Her Leftovers character, Nora Durst lost her entire family in the Sudden Departure. I definitely watched this movie as a reimagined Nora Durst getting to see her kids again.
Everything was set up for this movie to affect me deeply. It didn't though. Believe it or not, but I don't think it was emotionally manipulative enough. Lee Pace and Carrie Coon were both fairly subdued throughout. They seem sad. They don't seem wrecked like in a Rabbit Hole. I really expected a lot more impotent desperation in their scenes with the dead son's ghost (or spirit, or whatever it is). Don't get me wrong. It has a lot of that. Coon and Pace are both really good actors and play the emotions pretty well. They just never get primal. Like, you'd think if this was a bigger production that had Oscar hopes or would at least get a wide theatrical release, they would've brought more to this. Instead, it feels more like a fable than an examination of grief.
Verdict: Weakly Don't Recommend
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