Bitter & Twisted

I saw this when it played at the 2009 Cleveland Film Festival last year.

It's well worth a look. I thought the film was a very honest and moving depiction of a tortured family. The performances and direction were amazing.

The music was sometimes a little distracting and the Australian accents can be hard to understand at times, but I was really quite surprised by how moved I was.

I lost my brother to a car accident ten years ago and found the story to be one of the more realistic depictions of grief I've seen. It's hardly a light, fluffy movie, but once I settled into it - I was right there with it the whole way.

this movie seemed like it was going to have a point but it never got close to reigning that point in, whatever it was. Dead son, brother, ex, affair with married man, fat guy depressed, neglected wife and some really weird angle about a guy grooming the brother for a gay relationship which I guess wasn't really that weird cos none of the story elements seemed to be leading to any overall picture so why should this out of nowhere element be any different. I should have looked at the ratings spread before wasting 90 mins on this because with almost 50% voting a 10 and the rest in the low figures chances are this is a rigged vote and this isn't a life changing great movie. Give this one a miss unless you're related to or are friends with the cast and crew. It was pretty well filmed and edited, acting was passable mostly, and the director could go on to do good things, but this one is very average. much room for improvement.

I thought this was a really wonderful, understated film. The acting was heart-wrenching - especially the actress who plays the mother - and the cinematography had an almost dream like quality to it that kept me on edge for the entire film. Really captures that feel of lonely creepy suburban life well.

The story is nothing special though - a son/brother/boyfriend has died and the family gets torn apart - blah blah. Seen it before so many times. But I thought the way it was done is what helps it stand apart (and must be how it got into some of those huge festivals). There's some amazing moments - like a whirling shot around a park bench where the dead character appears and then disappears all in one take (you'll just have to see it to know what I'm talking about). I still have no idea how that was done. I went back and watched the scene three times to try and figure it out (maybe it's two shots blended I don't know). I gave up on it.

The guy who wrote, directed and acted in this is really somebody to watch. I found this film after reading his "Muppet Man" screenplay that topped this years Blacklist. Was curious to see what else he had done. Apparently he wrote this when he was 20. This is no "Muppet Man" though. But it's still pretty, pretty, pretty good (to quote Larry David).

Anyway - ignore the moaners on here. "Bitter and Twisted" is way better than 99.999999999999% of independent films I've seen over the last few years. I thought it was awesome.