Light of My Life Reviews

I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but since it was starring Casey Affleck, I thought I might as well check it out. More than 10 years ago, Affleck’s directorial debut was the experimental and rather weird ‘I’m still Here’ starring his brother-in-law / best friend Joaquin Phoenix (I think they did loose contact since his divorce with Summer Phoenix though). Well, for his 2^nd directorial effort, he delivered here a decent post-apocalyptic thriller but, to be honest, not much more than that. Sure, the mood was not bad and Affleck did deliver another solid performance but, eventually, he didn’t do anything really new or interesting with the genre. There was also the issue that this project did feel like a ego-trip. Indeed, not only Affleck played the lead but he also produced, wrote and directed the damned thing. To make things worse, it didn’t help that his character was basically competing for the award of ‘Father of the Year’. Seriously, not only he had some mighty survival success but he was leading some philosophical debates with his 10 year old daughter and he was also able to tell some really cool bedtime stories. The funny thing is that some viewers were bothered that this movie did start with a 12 minute uncut opening scene about some bedtime story actually cooked up by Affleck himself but I thought it was a nice way to introduce this father and his daughter. All in all, the whole thing felt slightly pretentious but, even so, I always had a weak spot for such minimalist post-apocalyptic features (seriously, I think half of the movie was with this man and this kid roaming around in some woods) and Affleck is always a charismatic actor. Anyway, to conclude, in spite of its flaws, it was still a decent watch and it is worth a look, especially if you like the genre.