We Have Always Lived in the Castle (2019)

BradWesley123's Movie Journal- July 2019 (28 movies items)

" DVD- 1hr. 35min. First Viewing It never comes together as a coherent whole, but We Have Always Lived in the Castle's parts are strong enough to warrant praise. The storytelling is the film's weakest link; director Stacie Passon captures a suitably unnerving atmosphere with tension mounting throughout. Superb craft and terrifically odd performances (Farmiga, in particular, is hard to turn away from) too, aid the film for it's first two acts. Unfortunately, she doesn't really fix screenwriter Mar"

We Have Always Lived in the Castle

“I suppose the interiority of Shirley Jackson’s prose proves a problem to visualize as several adaptations of her work jettison the slow creeping dread for other bells and whistles. Sure, Robert Wise got the balance right with The Haunting, but Jan De Bont absolutely did not. Do you remember the 1996 TV adaptation of The Lottery with Keri Russell? Did you even know The Bird’s Nest got adapted as a movie called Lizzie with Eleanor Parker?   What I’m trying to get at is that competent adaptations of Jackson’s work are few and far better between. Here’s Stacie Passon’s take on Jackson’s final novel, We Have Always Lived in the Castle, and it’s a bit too polite and quiet with a change to the ending that’s too obvious for Jackson’s more curlicue prose. All the incident and” read more

Watched in 2019 - Movies (383 movies items)

"My rating: 4/10"

Film Journal 2019 (225 movies items)

"Stacey Passon's Shirley Jackson -adaptation shows promise in that it's quite competently made and, as the ending reveals, does have some sort of take to it's material. The take, however, lands with a flutter rather than a resounding thud, as it relies on the thing Jackson's book is very much about: The dynamic of this alienated pair of sisters and the hateful townsfolk who can't wait to destroy everything they represent in their eyes, only held back by societal norms. The adaptation falters in r"