A Million Little Pieces

Frey, under his pen name of Atticus Finch, wrote the I am Number Four series of young adult novels and the movie of the same name. That movie wasn't bad, but did not do good enough to warrant its sequel.

He's a known charlatan, as well, evidenced by his apology on Oprah.

This wouldn't normally bother me too much, as a decent story is a decent story. What bothers me most about this film is that the director can't even turn a good story into a good movie. I get that she was dealing with something everyone knows isn't true, but instead of using the fiction license to create a compelling film, she -takes a blase approach to even re-filming poorly acted scenes. You know a movies' bad when even Billy Bob can't save it.

Don't waste your time - I only gave it a 5 out of respect for Thornton.

I don't undestand why they decided to make a movie adaptation out of the book instead of the controversy surrounding its publication. That would have been far more interesting. This movie is the poor man's Xavier Dolan film - and even his "artsy" shots are obnoxious enough. I assume they expected this movie to be an award winning project: nudity, check; tears, check; redemption arc, check; artsy shots out of nowhere, check. They even throw a couple of scientologists to the mix! Overall its plot is as basic and predictable as you would expect it to be had it been made during the 90s.

While maybe not always completely successful in conveying its important message, this work wears its heart on its sleeve. At times it's a hard watch, with some slightly over the top details but offers important considerations to all those booked in for serious detox treatment; A: Think seriously about all the challenges, regardless of your biased beliefs.

B: Remember, others before you, have overcome their petty and physical opposition towards the cures outlined stages, and gone on to win the battle - give up and you're lost.

Good performances manage to keep it on target and it's always interesting to see Australian Odessa Young on screen (even though here quite bleak) The co-writing and direction by the co-writer/lead performer's wife is competent and the two eventually manage to make us feel for the subject. Between the above-average cinematography, there's also a hard-working soundtrack helping to move it along. A couple of early, overindulged scenes finally give way to serious outcomes - even if not all as fully desired.

Note: Heavy Language, nudity, drug use.

A strong central performance about a film that dances around the edges of the grim reality at times and at times was poorly paced sometimes rushing sections and dragging other parts out. Still does a good job making you care about most the characters unlike some similar films. Unfortunately however it doesn't quite all come together and falls just short of being anything more than reasonably good.

Movie started great... dark, gritty. But Billy Bob looked uncomfortable with his part as did Giovanni. The character Lily just seemed thrown in. If there had been no full frontal male nudity, it seemed like another Made For TV movie. Not good....too bad with such great actors in it.