Movies

Not even Thewlis can save this trash. It had potential, but ended up being a ridiculous watercolour romance. It's been described as dark and understated. It's not. It's light, obvious schmaltz. There's no attempt at any realism, and it's an insult to anyone remotely familiar with the workings of a psychiatric unit. It promises themes of suicide and mental health but shows no understanding of either, merely using them as a cheap vehicle for clumsy, clichéd, feel-good garbage. In addition, the protagonist has no redeeming qualities, or even enough personality for the viewer to care about. The music is distractingly awful, as is most of the acting and direction. It's cheesy as all hell. Even if you have another century to live, do not waste a precious 94 minutes of it on this.

I read the book and saw the movie in Seoul, and I must say, it was quite disappointing. So many things were left out (and yes, I know this often happens in movies), but I feel the viewer won't get even half of the effect of the book by watching the movie.Sarah Michelle Gellar, I think, wasn't the best person for the role of Veronika. Her performance was rather bland and we don't really feel sorry for her character, but part of this is because of the bad script and numerous omissions from the book.To the movie's credit, the scenes with her and Edward are pretty good and it gets moving toward the end. Yet I think the movie could've been done so much better.The movie is worth watching but left me wanting.

Bearing some similarities with "Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself" I was somewhat skeptic from the start but quickly realised this had something else to offer. Cinematography was beautiful as were the sceneries, but acting as a whole was terrible. Dr. Blake was really quite good and Edward showed glimpses of greatness but that was all. For someone sinking, Veronika showed remarkable composure throughout and the attempt to show the patients as the only truly sane went completely overboard and lost the subtlety that would have been so becoming. The underlying story is good but implementation simply didn't do it justice. And what is it with these "Victorian" asylums? Surely they *did* exist in latter days - but this weird fusion between modern day therapy and a 100 year old perception of lunacy is contrived at best.