Susie Searches

This must be one of the most painful movies I've watched in a long time.

First, the actual kidnapper is revealed much too early in the movie, but then the writer of the script, despite this, continues to throw in twists and turns as though the viewer is a complete and utter moron with no short-term memory at all.

It became obvious exceedingly early in the movie the director was trying to make an arthouse film and failed magnificently!

The only reason I watched it to the end was the hope against hope it would get better, but alas, I was denied any sense of enjoyment at all.

The characters, every single one, speaks slowly and methodically with each word. The dramatic pauses are overused and the abstract colors in the background, with the cliche and requisite low lighting everywhere, are CLEARLY there to set the same cliche mood every avant garde mystery movie has present.

I don't know where the positive reviews came from, unless they're friends of the writer, director, or one of the people in the movie.

Seriously, folks, don't waste your time. You'll regret watching this movie with every fiber of your being. This is a review coming from an avid mystery lover. Murder She Wrote has better acting and writing than this movie.

I loved this cheerfully dark detective story. The plotting subverted my expectations several times. The Director did an amazing job of balancing the dark true crime elements while being self aware and funny. The cast of characters were all likeable and quirky giving the events a quaint small town atmosphere. This film deserves more love, and I would love to see more from this Director. Seriously great work from everyone all around. The music and sound design were also incredibly tasteful, and I got both a cute coming of age story mixed with a creepy true crime narrative. The rotten tomatoes critics have unfairly rated this piece so low. The audience got it right. This was a fantastic little film. I haven't seen such good work from an indie in a while.

I really didn't know what to expect with this film. On the surface it seemed like a very tame little mystery-adventure film possibly aimed at teenagers and that general age-range. Delving a little deeper though I could tell that not everything was as straight-forward as it seemed. There was an oddly talented cast who weren't going to sign up for just anything. Also Alex Wolff was involved with the project, and I've noticed he likes to take on roles in darker-themed movies. It was all a bit baffling.

And somehow despite all this I was still kind of surprised by what the actual story was. I liked it though. It was far from being as straight-forward as I feared it was going to be. There were some twisted moral dilemmas and some very dark and sinister characters in the mix.

The other thing that I liked was that I really didn't know how it was going to end. It found a fun little way to surprise me in that sense. This was a good one. 8/10.

Since childhood, Susie (Kiersey Clemons) loves reading mysteries with her mother. As a part-time college student, she takes care of her sick mother, interns at the police station, and does her mystery podcast but no one actually listens to it. When popular student Jesse (Alex Wolff) goes missing, she sets out to solve the mystery.

The reveal needs to be shown much later in the movie. The audience needs to suspect Jesse of kidnapping himself for the attention. They need to start a list of possible suspects before the movie does the reveal. Some other minor changes include killing off the uncle to delete him from the suspect list and Jim Gaffigan needs to be smarter to ramp up the tension of possible discovery. He's only smart for the last scene which made me wonder where that character has been throughout the movie.

I didn't have much hope for this movie at the beginning. As it went on, it actually got worse. But, then it reached a point where the twist and turns started to be both interesting and good. It was pretty obvious early on who the actual kidnapper was and although it seemed that it was much too early in the movie for this reveal, it turned out to present a lot of opportunities for suspenseful events. This is one of those movies that you have to pay close attention to everything that is said and that occurs from the beginning until the absolute end. This movie is categorised as a comedy and a mystery and it did contain both. Although I probably wouldn't watch this again it was a fun and entertaining movie to watch.