Endings, Beginnings

Daphne Mirador (Shailene Woodley) decides to take a six-months break after a four year relationship with Adrian (Matthew Gray Gubler). She's struggling to find a job and vows to stop drinking. She's living under her sister Billie (Lindsay Sloane) and her family. She meets Jack (Jamie Dornan) and Frank (Sebastian Stan) at a party.

The story is aimless which seems to be the point. Daphne is aimless and it makes for an aimless watch. It's as tiresome as that sounds. It's a lot of hot people having boring melodramas. On a minor note, I don't like the text style. The hipster colorized text is harder to read and is simpler trying too hard. I would have quit after thirty minutes if it isn't against my policy. There is a lot of stops and starts. I have nothing to cling to with these characters. I don't care about them and I don't really know the guys. With Dornan, I'm just reminded of 50 Shades and that's not a good thing. That may or may not be his fault but it is definitely unavoidable. The sex scenes don't help. As for Shailene, I applaud her attempts at being a little different than the constant MPDG. She does need a more discriminating eye for the material. This is a hipster melodrama of the boring kind.

"Endings, Beginnings" is a spare story of a woman, Daphne, who appears to have no career or job, and seems adrift in her personal life after a break-up. She does a lot of party- and club-hopping in LA, and meets two hot dudes who happen to be close friends. This triangle gets messy when she falls into a sexual relationship with both of them. One is the classic bad boy who owes people money, smokes pot, but is great in bed. The other is a more serious academic and writer who offers the prospect of a deeper relationship, but she seems to find him less "exciting." Even though he's very cool and good-looking!

The shaky camera work, abrupt cuts, dreamy lighting and lack of dialogue or structured plot make this seem like a music video more than a feature film. Stan and Woodley have some raunchy sex scenes, and you can see why she finds him irresistible, but this is fairly shallow fare due to the direction and writing.

I guess this film is about real life and real people. How messed up we are, and relationships, how extremely complicated is everything. The actors did an amazing job, since all dialogues were improvised, no written script. The movie has a certain atmosphere that catches you where music and cinematography are in harmony, and you'll have a great deal to think about way after "the end".

I enjoyed this film, and its honest look at the downsides of hook up culture. Perhaps Mr. Doremus's best film since the excellent "Like Crazy". Good acting among the three leads. Excellent soundtrack. More young people should see this film. Makes for a cautionary tale for those navigating the dating scene today, flitting from partner to partner.

If you are looking for an intellectual movie, skip this one. This is a movie about a 'lost' girl 'finding' herself. She has two incredibly attractive men to choose from and on goes the story. This movie is very reminiscent of wattpad fanfictions I used to read as a teen. I honestly saw this movie for Sebastian Stan and his performance was good. Woodley, as ever, has the emotional range of a cucumber. The soundtrack of the movie, however, is good. If you are bored and looking for a predictable romance movie that does not require a lot of thinking, this is for you.