This is a surprisingly good movie that's well worth your time to watch. The story is OK, could've used a little fleshing out & judging by some of the negative reviews - maybe it needed to explain itself more. Although I think sometimes it's good to have movies that don't make it easy for the audience. The problem is, the audience don't support movies that are difficult so a perfectly good production often gets shoved aside (as this one did) in favor of more conventional straight-forward brain-candy.
The characters needed a little more development and it lacked a lot of suspense that could have been introduced. BUT the direction was generally good, there was some lovely camera work & thoughtful framing throughout which resulted in a great evocation of mood and vaguely sinister under-tones (just wish they'd gone somewhere more sinister!!). The back-story was intriguing but they rushed through that when it might have been better to expand on it - certainly it would have introduced more thrills & creepiness. But even so, the story works well enough and is thought-provoking and even heart-warming at times.
BUT the stand out in this movie is the acting, particularly by Cillian Murphy. Many people have already mentioned it was Oscar worthy and I'll add my voice to that opinion. I've never seen anything quite like it. I wish he'd been given a more gritty story to apply that amazing talent to in this movie. It was so close to getting there but just missed getting the edge it needed to make it a great movie. I was totally in love with Emma. She was portrayed so beautifully I was in her corner no matter what!! :)
I also agree with many others that a lot of viewers missed the point and nuances of this movie so they thought - incorrectly - that there was nothing to it. There's too much reliance these days on a movie having some awesome "twist" and if it doesn't deliver said "awesome twist" it's "pointless" or boring. I'm not sure when "twists" became a prerequisite to being an interesting flick. Peacock has it's share of twists (more than one) but they are small and do not define the movie. They are there to move the story along not to be clever. Peacock is better thought of as a character study revolving around what happens when a perfectly & obsessively ordered (right down to the minute) but pretty much insane lifestyle suddenly has the rug pulled out from under it.
Despite it's flaws this movie is a lot better than a large percentage of the stuff that ends up in wide theatre release and it's a crying shame this was just dumped to DVD without so much as a whisper.
Watch it - if only to see the awesome performance of Cillian Murphy. Even most of the negative reviews acknowledge how amazing he was. Most of the points I've given this movie are there because of him.
The characters needed a little more development and it lacked a lot of suspense that could have been introduced. BUT the direction was generally good, there was some lovely camera work & thoughtful framing throughout which resulted in a great evocation of mood and vaguely sinister under-tones (just wish they'd gone somewhere more sinister!!). The back-story was intriguing but they rushed through that when it might have been better to expand on it - certainly it would have introduced more thrills & creepiness. But even so, the story works well enough and is thought-provoking and even heart-warming at times.
BUT the stand out in this movie is the acting, particularly by Cillian Murphy. Many people have already mentioned it was Oscar worthy and I'll add my voice to that opinion. I've never seen anything quite like it. I wish he'd been given a more gritty story to apply that amazing talent to in this movie. It was so close to getting there but just missed getting the edge it needed to make it a great movie. I was totally in love with Emma. She was portrayed so beautifully I was in her corner no matter what!! :)
I also agree with many others that a lot of viewers missed the point and nuances of this movie so they thought - incorrectly - that there was nothing to it. There's too much reliance these days on a movie having some awesome "twist" and if it doesn't deliver said "awesome twist" it's "pointless" or boring. I'm not sure when "twists" became a prerequisite to being an interesting flick. Peacock has it's share of twists (more than one) but they are small and do not define the movie. They are there to move the story along not to be clever. Peacock is better thought of as a character study revolving around what happens when a perfectly & obsessively ordered (right down to the minute) but pretty much insane lifestyle suddenly has the rug pulled out from under it.
Despite it's flaws this movie is a lot better than a large percentage of the stuff that ends up in wide theatre release and it's a crying shame this was just dumped to DVD without so much as a whisper.
Watch it - if only to see the awesome performance of Cillian Murphy. Even most of the negative reviews acknowledge how amazing he was. Most of the points I've given this movie are there because of him.