Miss You Already (7/10): Girl Power!

“You kind of look like a superhero.”

Catherine Hardwicke may not be a director who has consistently delivered strong work, but I tend to enjoy her more personal and female centered films. Many probably know her for her direction in the first Twilight film, which I actually enjoyed quite a bit despite the critical hate. Red Riding Hood I can agree with everyone was a huge failure, but her debut film, Thirteen, still remains one of her best films to date. I found some similarities between that film and Miss You Already, Hardwicke's latest movie. Although Thirteen centered on two young teenagers, it was basically a movie about female characters. In Miss  You Already the characters are in their late 30’s but the film also centers on a strong female friendship. It is not every day you get to see a film where the two protagonists are females and both the director and the screenplay writer are also women. The film has a voice of its own and despite being melodramatic at times it does feel authentic. It deserves to be seen. 

I know that there will be many comparisons between this film and The Fault in Our Stars because it centers on a character battling with cancer, but this film deals with the subject matter in a much more authentic tone. It is not aimed towards teens by introducing a charismatic character, but it tries to deal with the subject matter in an honest way by showing how cancer affects not only the individual but the family and friends around them. The friendship between Drew Barrymore’s Jess and Toni Collette’s Milly is at center and we get to see how this new struggle alters the course of their own personal family lives. The men playing their husbands (Dominic Cooper and Paddy Considine) are relegated because this is a film centering on female characters, but they each add emotional value to the film. I enjoyed the family dynamics here and was touched by the more emotional moments. I never felt them manipulative because the film has a voice of its own. Hardwicke seems to be in a much more comfortable position when she centers on dramatic stories and stays away from science fiction.

The performances from both Collette and Barrymore are solid and I believe they are the reason why the film works as well as it does. Collette especially gets to shine since she has some of the most difficult and emotional scenes in the movie, but Barrymore knows how to stand her ground and the chemistry between both actresses was solid. Cooper and Considine also get to have their moments although they don’t get much screen time. The cast is great and the film benefits from their charismatic performances. Miss You Already might not be an original or groundbreaking film, but it is a sincere family drama that manages to deliver authentic emotions. 

My Review: Red Riding Hood (2/10)

¨ If you love her, you'll let her go.¨

We`ve all heard the fairytale before about little red riding hood and her visit to her grandma`s house, but this film takes a much darker spin on the familiar story; unfortunately it takes one for the worse. The story is so ridiculous that I think this will probably be the frontrunner for the worst film of the year. It`s too bad they couldn’t make a better film considering the director and the great cast that was involved in this project. In the first place you had director Catherine Hardwicke who has directed several interesting projects like Thirteen and Lords of Dogtown. Her most notorious movie, however, was Twilight and I know she got a lot of critiques for that, but even I enjoyed that film. Red Riding Hood is by far her worst film and doesn’t live up to her early work although she also missed the mark with The Nativity Story. The magnificent cast is also wasted in this film: Amanda Seyfried is an interesting actress but there was nothing she could do with the script she had to work with. Then there is the always dependable Gary Oldman, but I couldn’t help but think his role in this film was one I already had seen before. The great talents of Virginia Madsen and Julie Christie were also put to no good. David Johnson is the man responsible for massacring the story and his screenplay is probably the worst thing about this film since the dialogue is beyond ridiculous.

The story takes place somewhere during medieval times in a small village that is tormented by some sort of werewolf. The villagers have made a truce with the wolf by offering some sort of animal sacrifice every full moon as long as the beast stays away from them. Valerie (Amanda Seyfried) is one of the local girls that is very much in love with a woodcutter named Peter (Shiloh Fernandez), the only problem is that her parents, Cesaire (Billy Burke) and Suzette (Virginia Madsen), want her to marry the wealthy Henry (Max Irons). Valerie and Peter decide to secretly run away together when all of a sudden a bell rings which serves as an alarm for a wolf attack. The beast has slaughtered Valerie`s older sister and the whole town is outraged. They decide to hunt the wolf in order to get their revenge. They also hire a famous werewolf hunter named Solomon (Gary Oldman) to help them with the hunt. Solomon brings along his guards and claims the wolf could be anyone from the village so he keeps a firm hand on all the villagers and his methods are rather harsh. The wolf proves to be a difficult match for Solomon and many more people begin to disappear. At the meantime Valerie has to decide who she can trust, Peter her longtime love, or Henry her soon to be husband. Anyone could be the werewolf and not even her grandmother (Julie Christie) is off the hook.

It would be hard to avoid comparisons between this movie and Twilight since the same director was involved in both projects and we have the whole love triangle deal, and yes even a werewolf. The difference in my opinion is that Twilight had a far better story and an unbelievably strong chemistry between the lead characters. The characters in Twilight are much better developed, and in this film they just seemed out of place in such wonderful scenery. Not even the beautiful white snow seemed real as the characters wore light clothes and no mist came out of their mouths. It was as if it were snowing at 80 degrees. Frozen is another film I watched this year which I hated and even that film at least captured the cold and freezing sensation. This movie wasn’t able to transmit any emotion at all. I didn’t feel entertained, scared, or amused by anything that was going on. The only highlight of the movie was perhaps the scenery, but that was it. The suspense doesn’t exist, and the ending is rather ridiculous. I completely hated this movie and wouldn’t recommend it to anyone at all. It was a waste of some talented people. I didn’t have a problem with the performances as much as I did with the story.

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