I almost rated this movie a 7. It spoke to me, although objectively I have to consider it only as above average.
First off, the costumery and mis-en-scene is great. The outfits and the hairstyles (sure, also the soundtrack) were really all that makes this movie count as a period piece--other than a mention of the Berlin Wall, and I suppose the subject of (female) bodybuilding (and the drugs that entails), lending this neo-noir certain Cold War themes about power being destructive--but that was totally worth it. And the "Nevada" (shot in New Mexico) suburban desert buildings--besides evoking for me a sort of Southern California I look at romantically--complete the imagery for a dirty realism text in 2024(!).
The director knows how to compose scenes. Even when the writing doesn't quite hold up, the lines being said are just enough, the pacing is taught enough, and the photography is dynamic enough to convey the idea/emotion.
Which does bring me to the denouement: while initially jarring, I ultimately had to consider it as working. Risking intentional fallacy, I can understand a director/writer who crafts this sort of screenplay nowadays and knows that it can never end well for two starcrossed lovers caught in a crime spree under the modern U. S. criminal-justice system; so why not (as a postmodernist) just embrace the fact that this is cinema, that we want to see the happy ending, and to have fun with it? The seriousness is taken out of the plot, but for those in the theater laughing at what they consider camp--and, sure, the acting isn't always perfect, as the leads can't quite perform up to that responsibility, and Ed Harris plays a bit cartoonishly, and the "psycho girlfriend" character overacts (only Jena Malone really delivers a consistently good performance)--we can only surmise that they have never been caught in love with someone for whom there is a mutual, essential, inescapable danger, and that is the theme this picture surely succeeds in conveying.
First off, the costumery and mis-en-scene is great. The outfits and the hairstyles (sure, also the soundtrack) were really all that makes this movie count as a period piece--other than a mention of the Berlin Wall, and I suppose the subject of (female) bodybuilding (and the drugs that entails), lending this neo-noir certain Cold War themes about power being destructive--but that was totally worth it. And the "Nevada" (shot in New Mexico) suburban desert buildings--besides evoking for me a sort of Southern California I look at romantically--complete the imagery for a dirty realism text in 2024(!).
The director knows how to compose scenes. Even when the writing doesn't quite hold up, the lines being said are just enough, the pacing is taught enough, and the photography is dynamic enough to convey the idea/emotion.
Which does bring me to the denouement: while initially jarring, I ultimately had to consider it as working. Risking intentional fallacy, I can understand a director/writer who crafts this sort of screenplay nowadays and knows that it can never end well for two starcrossed lovers caught in a crime spree under the modern U. S. criminal-justice system; so why not (as a postmodernist) just embrace the fact that this is cinema, that we want to see the happy ending, and to have fun with it? The seriousness is taken out of the plot, but for those in the theater laughing at what they consider camp--and, sure, the acting isn't always perfect, as the leads can't quite perform up to that responsibility, and Ed Harris plays a bit cartoonishly, and the "psycho girlfriend" character overacts (only Jena Malone really delivers a consistently good performance)--we can only surmise that they have never been caught in love with someone for whom there is a mutual, essential, inescapable danger, and that is the theme this picture surely succeeds in conveying.