I always meant to watch this before now. It was one of those films I was more excited about than I’d expected. I just never go around to it. Why? It just seemed so long. When did we decide that films must be so bloody long these days? It feels as though we either get 90 minutes or a 3-hour epic. And what is the benefit of a long film? If anything, it just means you can’t tell your story succinctly enough. What better way to tell people that you don’t know how to tell a story than by making it go on for an hour longer than necessary? This week, I decided to suck it up and braced myself for the 158-minute runtime. I know that’s not actually a lot in the grand scheme of things but it was a work night and I was already exhausted. Who knew if I would be able to concentrate on this enough to get a good idea of how good it was? At least if the film didn’t keep me engaged then Adam Driver’s face would.
Had I not been struck down with festive flu last week, I had planned to write a post about the things I liked and disliked about the latest Star Wars film. One of those things was Adam Driver and his Kylo Ren oversized sweater vibes. It was hot. It’s probably not the right thing to take away from The Rise of Skywalker but the casual Kylo Ren vibe is everything. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve always believed Adam Driver was a beautiful man but his appearance in the last quarter of the film is insane. It was one of the first things my friend and I discussed upon leaving the showing. And it was something we both needed after watching him in Marriage Story. There’s nothing like showing two beautiful people going through a messy divorce to make them instantly unappealing. It feels like we’ve been hearing about marriage story for years and the wait has only increased my expectations and excitement for it. On paper, it had everything it needed to be great and provide Netflix with another Oscar contender. Even though I’ve never been the biggest Scarlett Johansson fan, I was excited to see how these two actors would work together. And I love me some Laura Dern and Noah Baumbach. It’s one of those cases where something would have needed to go horribly horribly wrong for not to enjoy it. But, let’s not forget, this is Netflix…
Yipee ki-yay, motherbooker 