I love Adelaide Clemons and Patrick J Adams, and now I love Douglas Smith. But I don't love this film and I wanted to. The dialogue is overwritten and wordy, and unnatural. And then there's the halting and stuttering style in which it's delivered. It makes for overly long and tedious scenes being stretched beyond their meaning. It was really annoying.
These are such terrific actors but they seemed manhandled by the writing and directing and therefore constrained or trapped in what could otherwise be a very compelling story. Only Patrick J Adams seemed to be able to get beyond these shackles. He's natural and engaging and able to allow his quiet subtext to roar without drawing attention to it. I wish his role had been larger. And I wish the other two very talented actors could have done the same. It's my impression that they weren't allowed.
Adelaide Clemons (and I didn't know this) has a beautiful singing voice and her songs, sprinkled through the narrative, are effective even when the narrative isn't. There are a few really strong
moments but they're just too few to elevate this film to the "must see" level. Most of the scenes are just way too drawn out and just have way, way, too many words in them. The script seems like something that sounded really good in the writer's head, or looked good on paper, but does not sound right on people. They just don't talk this way in real life.
