The master: movie review

It must be the effect of reading "So you want to be a producer" by Lawrence Turman, but I am becoming increasingly critical of the movies I see, especially those that require a little bit more brain power than what "Home alone" asks for.

Last week I headed to the cinema with the intention to watch Argo, the new spy movie by Ben Affleck, but due to my friends and my usual laziness we ended up missing the show and settling for another movie at a time that suited us all: The Master. I entered the projection room with no high expectation about the movie; I hadn't seen the trailer, I hadn't heard about it. I was an empty canvas ready to be painted with the colors and shapes of the movie. At the end of the 144 minutes I wasn't an empty canvas anymore: I was a bag of stones!

from: http://blogs.villagevoice.com

I rarely look at my watch when I am at the cinema, but The Master managed to make me beg for it to finish. Don't get me wrong, the acting was excellent, so it was  photography and also direction. The writing was the problem: fragmented, confusionary, a weird hybrid between an attempt to make a compelling movie out of a  documentary-like script. Ah and also: it was  agonizing. Yes, agonizing, because watching Philip Seymour Hoffman sing a sad, incomprehensible tune after 2 hours of confusionary story-line, made me want to jump out of my chair and run for air. 

I think this is my fiercest movie review ever as I haven't felt like this since... Bounce, which was equally unbearable yet not as brilliantly acted. Joaquin Phoenix plays the role of Freddie Quell brilliantly: from the smirk on his face to the furious up-and-down between "wood & glass". I really think that the reason why I didn't like this movie stays in the writing of Alan Young whom I didn't know at all and for which IMDB records only this entry. Unfortunately I cannot get those 144 minutes back, but ehi: at least now I know that I don't like this kind of movies. If you want a suggestion from me, I can tell you that if you like to be driven in the story by skillful storytelling rather than actively search for meanings and connections all the time this is not the film for you, or at least avoid paying 10 bucks or more and just rent it if you really are curious. I bet there are documentaries that explain the history of Scientology way better.