An average movie

Even though this movie apparently didn’t get much love when it was released, since it was directed by Sam Mendes, I was still eager to check it out. Well, to be honest, I would have to agree with the critics on this one and it seems that Sam Mendes did deliver his least compelling movie so far, I’m afraid. It’s not that it was really bad though. First of all, it was shot by Roger Deakins, arguably one of the best cinematographers in the world, so the damned thing looked fine (he was actually even nominated for an Academy Award for this movie). Furthermore, Olivia Colman, who is slowly becoming one of the best actress at work nowadays, delivered a very strong performance here. Indeed, her character went through so many emotional states and Colman managed to display these emotions sometimes only through her eyes which was rather uncanny. Eventually, the main issue was with the writing provided by Sam Mendes himself. Indeed, for the first time in his career, Mendes got sole writing credits (he usually is not involved at all in the writing process) and, well, the end-result was not really impressive, I’m afraid. Basically, there was not a single moment during which this rather generic and not really thrilling love story was properly linked to this intriguing movie theater. To add the historical racial tensions going on at the time in the UK was also a mistake because it didn’t fit at all with this rather quaint love story. In fact, even this love story didn’t really work after all. I mean, why did these two individuals did fall in love after all? What did Stephen see in Hilary and what did Hilary see in Stephen beside a young hot black man? Anyway, to conclude, in spite of its flaws, Sam Mendes still can’t direct a bad movie though so I still think it is worth a look, even if it is probably his weakest movie so far.