Todd Haynes tries his hand at making a child-friendly film, like what Martin Scorsese did in "Hugo," with mixed results.
In the plus column we get Julianne Moore, lovely as always as a famous stage actress in 1920s New York and later in the film as that actress's adult daughter. In the debit column we get one of those strained, overly precious stories in which two separate plot strands set in two different time periods come together through the reveal that one character is related to another. I feel like this kind of narrative always works better as a book, when an author can take his/her time at untangling the threads, but suffers in translation when the same story has to be compressed into a reasonable running time for a film. This movie pushes every button it can think of to wring wistful tears from its audience, but it all just feels so manipulated.
I prefer Todd Haynes when he's making films for grown ups.
Grade: B-
In the plus column we get Julianne Moore, lovely as always as a famous stage actress in 1920s New York and later in the film as that actress's adult daughter. In the debit column we get one of those strained, overly precious stories in which two separate plot strands set in two different time periods come together through the reveal that one character is related to another. I feel like this kind of narrative always works better as a book, when an author can take his/her time at untangling the threads, but suffers in translation when the same story has to be compressed into a reasonable running time for a film. This movie pushes every button it can think of to wring wistful tears from its audience, but it all just feels so manipulated.
I prefer Todd Haynes when he's making films for grown ups.
Grade: B-