Good points:
the movie is more thoughtfully acted and directed than I anticipated. You can tell the director and writer, cared about the material.
Not good:
I understand that some of a 400 page book is going to be cut, but it's more how they cut and what they cut.
-Unfortunately I cannot blame some ambitious and out of touch screen writer, because Chiwetel wrote it.
-Like a lot of biopics, it plays very predictably, the writing is all exposition, people don't talk like that
-The story cuts all around his life, and has some odd lighting in these scenes that are all red/orange
-It rarely grounds itself in the world of 1999-2008, in terms of clothes, music, whatever, with some exceptions
-They went with overplaying the Dad's role, and moralizing the whole thing, probably so Chiwetel could adapt it
-The plot that he sold weed at Yale to pay for his Dad's cancer treatments is bullshyt. I know why they do that, to provide an arc and an easy way for the audience to humanize Rob, but that undercuts the entire message of the book/the story, about who Rob Peace was and what happened to him. It cuts away all the complexity into simple redemption arc/thug trying to escape. it is kind of insulting.
-He's human because of his complex life and influences, his character, his flaws, his whatever, not because he had to save his Dad from cancer.
-They stripped away the Yale part, and never go deeper than a few nods at his classmates and the school system
-Run time is an issue, but you could rewrite this totally and add 20 minutes, and tell a decent version of the story.
the movie is more thoughtfully acted and directed than I anticipated. You can tell the director and writer, cared about the material.
Not good:
I understand that some of a 400 page book is going to be cut, but it's more how they cut and what they cut.
-Unfortunately I cannot blame some ambitious and out of touch screen writer, because Chiwetel wrote it.
-Like a lot of biopics, it plays very predictably, the writing is all exposition, people don't talk like that
-The story cuts all around his life, and has some odd lighting in these scenes that are all red/orange
-It rarely grounds itself in the world of 1999-2008, in terms of clothes, music, whatever, with some exceptions
-They went with overplaying the Dad's role, and moralizing the whole thing, probably so Chiwetel could adapt it
-The plot that he sold weed at Yale to pay for his Dad's cancer treatments is bullshyt. I know why they do that, to provide an arc and an easy way for the audience to humanize Rob, but that undercuts the entire message of the book/the story, about who Rob Peace was and what happened to him. It cuts away all the complexity into simple redemption arc/thug trying to escape. it is kind of insulting.
-He's human because of his complex life and influences, his character, his flaws, his whatever, not because he had to save his Dad from cancer.
-They stripped away the Yale part, and never go deeper than a few nods at his classmates and the school system
-Run time is an issue, but you could rewrite this totally and add 20 minutes, and tell a decent version of the story.
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