Una Reviews

(MU) No big deal, but tight and tense, try to avoid the exploitation of its theme, tries nos to be hard on the guy, Mara is not convincing, Ahmed is better in a supporting role...

To be honest, I really had no idea what to expect from this flick but since I have a weak spot for Rooney Mara, I was quite eager to check it out. Well, like all movies dealing with pedophilia, it turned out to be extremely disturbing, even sickening. However, the approach they chose turned out to be rather misguided. I mean, I understand that they tried to humanize somehow both the victim and the perpetrator which might seem courageous. However, to make the audience sympathize with a child predator is a tall order but what made the whole thing pretty much impossible to digest was the fact that half of the movie was about these two seriously f*ckep up people reminiscing about their past seriously f*ckep up relationship. Of course, many people might wonder what the hell was going in Una’s mind but I think it was pretty obvious that she was completely messed up resulting in her irrational behavior and I was more wondering what she was thinking and feeling back then. Indeed, what made the young Una actually fall for her much older neighbor? Eventually, even though Ben Mendelsohn delivered another strong performance, I think that a more classically handsome actor would have worked better than a guy who actually look like a creepy child predator (sorry, no offense, Ben). By the way, I thought it was hard to believe that a convicted child abuser would be actually able to change his name. Isn’t it the point to keep tabs on such guys to at least make sure they don’t harm anyone anymore? Anyway, at least, the whole thing did display the massive damage done to the victim, even if the physical ‘contact’ might have been consensual, and above all, how irreversible this damage might be. Finally, I shouldn’t forget to mention that Mara was pretty much pitch-perfect playing an incredibly difficult part. Anyway, to conclude, in spite of a really misguided approach, I still think it is worth a look though.