Friday, April 9, 2010

For the sake of not having to write the same intro a million different ways throughout the rest of time, just know that this column avoids the overly long and sometimes dull process of full film reviews and instead opts to break things down based on what I thought going in, what happened while I was there and what I learned at the end of it all.  Thanks for reading!

The Breakdown - The Greatest

The Impression:

A touching, heartfelt look at grief and the way it effects an affluent family.


The Reality:

There is a shot in the opening ten minutes of The Greatest that is astounding.  Allan Brewer (Pierce Brosnan), Grace Brewer (Susan Sarandon), and Ryan Brewer (Johnny Simmons) sit in a car after the funeral of their son/brother.  Allan Brewer is seated in the middle staring straight ahead, Grace and Ryan stare aimlessly out the windows.  The camera sits for ten minutes, the awkwardness of grief writ large, the pain oozing out of the families faces.  It's amazing.

And the end of the road in terms of quality for this film.

What follows is a trite bit of self-help grief 101.  Every cliché about death and grief and family and love is thrown in to your face like vitriolic acid, devoid of plot or even skillful camera work.  It reminded me of a scene in a better film about families and grief, Moonlight Mile, where Susan Sarandon's character (again playing the mother of a deceased child) throws self-help books in to a fire, scoffing at the sort of pedantic bullshit they hold within.  Well, Suzie Q, I implore you, take a peek at the past, and let this be a lesson well learned.


The Lesson:

Avoid this film like the plague.  It might be the worst movie I've seen in years.

 

Noah Sanders is the blog/news editor at Light In The Attic and a contributor at Sound On The Sound and the KEXP blog.  He also has his own Criterion-based film site, Criterion Quest.   If you'd like to contact Noah in regards to his writings here at Side One: Track One then please do so here.

- Noah Sanders - -



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