The Ticket

In "The Ticket" we get to meet a blind man, who regains his vision in the beginning of the film. When he does, he starts to pay more attention to his exterior, starts to buy fancier things and basically becomes an asshole.

The film was directed by Ido Fluk in a visually fine way, but in other ways lesser good. The shots looked nice, with some good use of shadow. They also play around with the use of focus and lighting, which really fits the film. The color grading was nice and it reminded me quite a lot of the film "Demolition", staring Jake Gyllenhaal, which was a notable better film than this one. But it did make sense that the film would look very good, because the main character is able to see again, so the world must look gorgeous to him, which the film succeeded at doing. I liked what they did in the beginning of the film: they put us in complete darkness, with only the voices of characters in the background. From that moment we know that we're seeing things from the perspective of Dan Stevens' character: blind. But slowly the light starts to come through the iris of Stevens, and we feel how he regains his sight. They really sold me on that opening scene, but what was to come, was quite disappointing in comparison to that. What the director tried to do was to give the film a deeper meaning, which I thoroughly understand. It's an independent film and it wants to draw attention, so why not do it by making the film a bit odd, and by having it have a deeper meaning. This deeper meaning though, wasn't as deep as it wants to be. It's pretty obvious from the get-go, namely: when man is granted something big, it's doomed to fail. The film also does get boring pretty fast. The way characters speak in a very soft manner, the soft colors and the slow soundtrack all made the film feel longer than it was and made it feel very boring.

The acting wasn't a flaw, though. It was one of the best parts of the film even. Dan Stevens, who played the main character, has proved since 2014 in "The Guest" that he's a wonderful actor. Since then he's only been growing. This year he was phenomenal in "Legion" and in this film to he really sold it. The kid actor, Skylar Gaertner too was pretty good, just not as good as Dan Stevens, as he overshadows quite a lot of the cast. Skylar Gaertner played the son of Dan Stevens and there was a fun dynamic between the two of them. Someone else who was pretty good is Oliver Platt, who played the blind friend of James (Dan Stevens). The rest of the supporting cast also did quite a good job, but just like the kid actor they were overshadowed by the wonderful acting of Dan Stevens.

The main premise was good, but not well enough explored, which is quite a shame, because it all sounds so interesting. They only bring it up to create some tension between Oliver Platt and Dan Stevens, because Platt is still blind, whereas Stevens has regained sight. They glance over the regaining sight, which I would've liked to see a more in depth approach to. The screenplay by the way was also written by the director, Ido Fluk. I like when directors do this, because it shows the dedication that they put into this film, and it shows in the final result. I liked that they evolve Dan Stevens' character, but I don't like how they do it. We get introduced to James when he regains his vison, it was a good scene, but due to this we don't get to know him when he was blind, because when he regains his sight he turns into a total asshole and I don't really get the motivation for becoming one. So I believe that if we got introduced to him earlier, we got to sympathize with him, so we later could understand why he changed and by doing that the development wouldn't be as abrupt as it was now. But only the part where he turns into an asshole was handled badly, the other developments were more subtle and made me care more for James. The other characters weren't highlighted as much as Stevens, which is really understandable, because the film is told from his perspective and the other characters really don't need any development, so I found no problem in that.

In the end "The Ticket" was an OK film that's worth your time. The deeper lying message was pretty obvious, but the visuals totally make up for it. The acting was wonderful, but at times the character motivation is lacking. That's why this film gets a 6.5/10 from me.

Streamed this based on a general interest in following Dan Stevens's post-"Downton" career. Owing to this film's totally amateur sound editing, I could not learn critical information about what these characters were like before the health change that became a key trigger for the whole story. Did not know how and why the marriage seemed to work despite hurdles that many would find crushing, or whether the Dan character had ever before shown signs of an aggressive, competitive personality. I just went from one mumbling, whispering personal scene after another to the not only clear but blasting country songs at the dance venue and totally audible phone sales pitches in the workplace. It's only in the indispensable character-developing scenes that this film leaves us high and dry and totally frustrated.

From his IMDb bio page, it looks as if director Ido Fluk has only one 2011 feature-length film to his credit before 2016's "The Ticket," with short films and writing credits (including this film) and assistant directorships in his history. I cannot see how Dan's early (and awkward for everyone!!) departure from "Downton" has led him to projects this lacking in production professionalism and I hope he can right his ship very, very soon. His and Oliver Platt's work is excellent, but how many times can he afford to risk straight-to-DVD oblivion while groping for a long-lasting film career?

A film with many details that lead nowhere, All movie scenes are predictable - and became to me a very slow paced melodrama that, I didn't really enjoy. the dialogue between the characters is dry, not developing, heavy. In general this movie is stuck in a slow is neither interesting nor intriguing.

Dan Stevens stars here as James, a man who suddenly regains his sight, after many years, when a pituitary brain tumor shrinks. At first, he celebrates with his loving wife Sam (Malin Akerman) and his 13-year-old son Jonah (Skylar Gaertner). However, soon James wants more in his life and this leads to strong marital discord and his engaging in shady and manipulative business practices at his real estate company job.

This will all eventually lead to predictable consequences, and the film became to me a very slow paced melodrama that I didn't really enjoy. The very vague and ambiguous ending certainly didn't help any either.

We all ask ourselves if given the chance would we reach out and grab that lottery ticket if given to us? The idea of everything being handed to us after enduring for so long. Ido Fluk and Sharon Mashihi understand this and perhaps manipulate this into greed and lust - Perhaps? "The Ticket" presents this question, but like most thought provoking questions - This film has no answer for you.

Directed Ido Fluk, from a script written by Fluk and Sharon Mashihi. "The Ticket" stars Dan Stevens (The Guest) as James, a man blind from youth, with a comfortable life with his wife Sam (Malin Åkerman) and son Jonah (Skylar Gaertner). One day he regains his vision discovering he's not happy or contempt with his life - grabbing a promotion at work, leaves his wife for Jessica (Kerry Bishé) an employee where he works, and mistreating his friend Bob (Oliver Platt) one of James's blind co- workers.

Dan Stevens as always is fierce and enigmatic as James. Stevens is careful not to have you sympathize with James and the choices he makes along the way - But to ponder on each choice and wonder what's driving him. See, like each character in "The Ticket" (And there aren't many) they all have something driving them - something they want. Sam is fine and happy with going dancing, rather than an eloquent restaurant. She's also tired and Malin shows this beautifully. James, however, wants more, and Stevens never slows down giving us a moment to blame James for his choices.

Director Ido Flunk beautifully directs, with a unique visual flare centering around James's point of view. Where the film falls would be the predictability of its plot and lack of motivation for its characters.

"The Ticket" is a well made film with a deeply moving performance from Stevens.