Zoom

I feel like I've been stumbling on movies like this a lot lately. Films with an excellent message/concept that suffer from someone just insisting on over the top artistry. In the case of Zoom, we get a movie with some very important commentary on body image, the perceptions we have of ourselves, the way our appearance impacts how others see us and how we see ourselves and our very potential. The problem is, this gets so far up inside of itself that it loses all focus. What could have been a simple and poignant film has to be twisted in a multilayered, contrived mess of a plot that's weirdly part Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

This isn't an awful watch, it's just lacking in focus and restraint. Trim some of the nonessential flourishes and this turns into a pretty poignant movie that I think has a terribly important message to get across. Sadly, we get what we get and that's not a rousing success exactly. It's an interesting watch and I think it's worth checking out for fans of the cast or those who are really caught by the trailer/description but if none of that grabs you I can't say this is a must watch.

Even though only a section of the film is animated using rotoscope, the whole movie has an indi comic feel, like Love and Rockets of Ghost World (which was made into a film)

The animation looks like it's the same as A Scanner Darkly, possible done by the same animation team, but in A Scanner Darkly it seems like the animation was a bigger arch.

It's an interesting circle about three people. Emma who works at a Factory that makes sex dolls, draws pictures of herself being a beautiful busty femme fatale, an image that the guy she's sleeping with finds absurd. In retaliation, she draws her dream guy, Eddie, a hot Spanish action film director who's doing a film he plans to use to take himself serious, but comes across a little problem when Emma, unhappy with her new boobs decides to get rid of the "package" that made him a hot commodity in Hollywood, and effects the making of his film about Michelle, a Brazilian model tired of being judge on her looks, who goes home to write a novel that just so happens to be about Emma.

It's a nicely layered story and becomes very surrealistic, as all three story tellers take us through their creative process, and if anyone knows anything about the creative process, the story goes through constant changes which switches the tone in order to make the story work.

It's a very unformulated movie that goes from the tame to the outrageous, and keeps me captivated with some very interesting personas moving on the screen.

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There is some positive and negative things about Zoom but overall it's worth a watch. The positives are the acting, that was quite good, the cinematography that was to me the best part of this movie, the animation parts were also well done and added something special to the story. The story itself is innovative but it's complexity might scare some viewers off. It's basically a story in a story in a story, all related to each other in a weird way. Weird isn't necessary bad, you just have to have an open mind. If not, then maybe this movie isn't for you. I liked it. Could it have been better? Yes sure but still it was entertaining enough to keep my attention.

A fun concept, reasonably well executed although the black comedy was weak. Solid performances by the cast although Gael Garcia Bernal was a little two dimensional 😅.

Really hard movie to describe, it's definitely a art-house project but a entertaining one that never feels to pretentious for it's own good despite it's multilayered and multidimensional bizarreness and existentialistic nature.

Despite having a somewhat serious message it has a high dosage of comedy and moves on at a refreshingly fast pace as well (these sort of experimental movies usually doesn't).

With some entertaining performances from the likes of Alison Pill, Tyler Labine, Michael Eklund, Jason Priestley and and albeit I didn't recognize him: Gael Garcia Bernal (as the animated Eddie).

Pill and Labine's characters work at a sex-doll facory specialising on the most realistic looking dolls in the business and there are a lot of sex references which might be a little too much for some people but I found it all fairly fun.

Overall if you are looking for something different than this will definitely do the trick.