I am completely unfamiliar with Pedro Almodovar’s non-English work, but using the Yorgos Lanthimos method of translating directly from page to screen wasn’t the best idea here.

I don’t know how to put it into words other than that I felt like I watched an audiobook. All of the line delivery was so forced- like it was straight out of the auditions for the movie. Sentences are spoken as allegories to the point where it makes it frustrating to listen to the stories being told. Characters are over descriptive in their conversations and even in sitting with them for almost two hours it somehow felt like this was always their first time meeting.

I know Tilda and Julianne usually have great acting chops and are some of the best in their field so I was excited to see them play off of one another. Here they are at their most absurd with Swinton overdoing it on multiple fronts. Many times throughout I was wondering if they even remembered they were in the same movie. These actors put the drama in dramatic.

The plot moves in a confusing way where it can’t decide if it wants to hone in on the past more than the present when maybe the past didn’t really even matter. It loses focus towards the end and becomes something else entirely that doesn’t quite work. I was astonished by a casting choice which completely took me out of whatever seriousness that was left.

Even though the lighting felt amateur at times, the colors and what they stood for are what I would call good. Pedro is very strategic in his framing of shots and knows how to move the camera in a way that helps you feel the space that you are in. Although we have two great talents on screen, I feel this story was better off never leaving the ink on a page.

5.6/10