1/10
There should be a brave and powerful film made about this story - This isn't it
31 October 2015
'The only way to really tell what happened is to fictionalise it - that's the only way to get to the truth' - Words to this effect are said at the beginning of the film (I can't be sure of the exact quote and would never want to see it again) so I thought okay, I see where they're going with this. Change the names so we can explore everything that needs to be said about this case. What we got however is an incoherent, uneven, self indulgent piece about a coke sniffing delusional film maker who fails to connect with either the story or the people around him while trying to write a script about it. Maybe that is what happened as a result of the director trying to make this film, but then okay, don't make a film about that! The memory of Meredith Kercher is lost here and becomes almost as irrelevant as the title of the film which tries to have a clever double meaning and fails on every level. When I heard this film was in the works under the stewardship of Michael Winterbottom I thought it was going to be in safe hands. He is a brilliant film maker. No stranger to the world of true life drama stories but something went really wrong here. The film feels like it became a parody of what a film maker goes through when trying to make a film of this type - which is complex and difficult to get to the truth of, while that is as maybe this is completely the wrong subject and material with which to explore those issues - For one thing its about a true life murder case when an innocent girl with her whole life ahead of her was brutally murdered and those responsible appear to have got away with it. I was expecting a film with real balls which was going to take on the known facts of this case which captured the media attention of the world and work through them methodically and give some much needed clarity to areas of the case which have been portrayed with ever increasing conflict in the media. If the Kercher family were hoping this film would in anyway give them a sense of closure or at least bring some light to the darker areas of this case, how disappointed they must have been. I find it hard to understand what attracted the cast to the material though Daniel Bruhl is on form in the leading role and redeems himself well but do we really need to dodgy CGI monsters induced by this drug taking? An extremely badly misjudged film which hopefully will be forgotten very quickly.
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