The Ticket

The Ticket (2016)

A serious movie, and sincere. The obvious thrust is the poster lines, and this is no spoiler—a man who has been blind for a decade gains his sight back. The metaphor here (and repeated throughout) is that it's like winning the lottery (hence the title of the film).

Now what?

Slowly (too slowly for most of us) the man goes through several broad phases as he reassesses his world, both personally and physically (viusally) around him. The euphoria, the wanting more, the doubts, the challenges, each section is simple (to the point of simplistic, I think) but heartfelt. The leading character (played by Dan Stevens) is compelling enough as a regular guy swept up with things bigger than most of us encounter.

It's maybe unfair to say this isn't enough—but it isn't. It's a lot, but there needs to be other layers, complications of plot, but also nuances of feeling that someone in this situation would experience. It would not and could not be an easy arc from one zone to another. Disruption should be really ruinous and ecstatic, not a dull slow ride.

Also, and an odd comment but needed to be made—the audio is weird. A lot of the film is murmured, as if people are conversing their inner best. But much of the time a gentle music also plays and it's just plain hard to hear! Mood triumphs over content, but it's not enough.

In "The Ticket" we get to meet a blind man, who regains his vision in the beginning of the film. When he does, he starts to pay more attention to his exterior, starts to buy fancier things and basically becomes an asshole.

The film was directed by Ido Fluk in a visually fine way, but in other ways lesser good. The shots looked nice, with some good use of shadow. They also play around with the use of focus and lighting, which really fits the film. The color grading was nice and it reminded me quite a lot of the film "Demolition", staring Jake Gyllenhaal, which was a notable better film than this one. But it did make sense that the film would look very good, because the main character is able to see again, so the world must look gorgeous to him, which the film succeeded at doing. I liked what they did in the beginning of the film: they put us in complete darkness, with only the voices of characters in the background. From that moment we know that we're seeing things from the perspective of Dan Stevens' character: blind. But slowly the light starts to come through the iris of Stevens, and we feel how he regains his sight. They really sold me on that opening scene, but what was to come, was quite disappointing in comparison to that. What the director tried to do was to give the film a deeper meaning, which I thoroughly understand. It's an independent film and it wants to draw attention, so why not do it by making the film a bit odd, and by having it have a deeper meaning. This deeper meaning though, wasn't as deep as it wants to be. It's pretty obvious from the get-go, namely: when man is granted something big, it's doomed to fail. The film also does get boring pretty fast. The way characters speak in a very soft manner, the soft colors and the slow soundtrack all made the film feel longer than it was and made it feel very boring.

The acting wasn't a flaw, though. It was one of the best parts of the film even. Dan Stevens, who played the main character, has proved since 2014 in "The Guest" that he's a wonderful actor. Since then he's only been growing. This year he was phenomenal in "Legion" and in this film to he really sold it. The kid actor, Skylar Gaertner too was pretty good, just not as good as Dan Stevens, as he overshadows quite a lot of the cast. Skylar Gaertner played the son of Dan Stevens and there was a fun dynamic between the two of them. Someone else who was pretty good is Oliver Platt, who played the blind friend of James (Dan Stevens). The rest of the supporting cast also did quite a good job, but just like the kid actor they were overshadowed by the wonderful acting of Dan Stevens.

The main premise was good, but not well enough explored, which is quite a shame, because it all sounds so interesting. They only bring it up to create some tension between Oliver Platt and Dan Stevens, because Platt is still blind, whereas Stevens has regained sight. They glance over the regaining sight, which I would've liked to see a more in depth approach to. The screenplay by the way was also written by the director, Ido Fluk. I like when directors do this, because it shows the dedication that they put into this film, and it shows in the final result. I liked that they evolve Dan Stevens' character, but I don't like how they do it. We get introduced to James when he regains his vison, it was a good scene, but due to this we don't get to know him when he was blind, because when he regains his sight he turns into a total asshole and I don't really get the motivation for becoming one. So I believe that if we got introduced to him earlier, we got to sympathize with him, so we later could understand why he changed and by doing that the development wouldn't be as abrupt as it was now. But only the part where he turns into an asshole was handled badly, the other developments were more subtle and made me care more for James. The other characters weren't highlighted as much as Stevens, which is really understandable, because the film is told from his perspective and the other characters really don't need any development, so I found no problem in that.

In the end "The Ticket" was an OK film that's worth your time. The deeper lying message was pretty obvious, but the visuals totally make up for it. The acting was wonderful, but at times the character motivation is lacking. That's why this film gets a 6.5/10 from me.

I don't usually exert the effort to write a review, but it's something of a crime that this movie gets such low reviews on IMDb. The other reviewers are the type of people who feel the need to cast their judgment on a film just because it doesn't fit their very narrow definition of a worthwhile film. Does The Ticket ask more questions than it answers? Sure. But you could hardly say it moves too fast to adequately deal with them. One of the beauties of this film is its slow, methodical pace. And the cinematography alone is worth your time. Don't pass judgment based on this film's reviews and decide for yourself.

A film with many details that lead nowhere, All movie scenes are predictable - and became to me a very slow paced melodrama that, I didn't really enjoy. the dialogue between the characters is dry, not developing, heavy. In general this movie is stuck in a slow is neither interesting nor intriguing.

Dan Stevens stars here as James, a man who suddenly regains his sight, after many years, when a pituitary brain tumor shrinks. At first, he celebrates with his loving wife Sam (Malin Akerman) and his 13-year-old son Jonah (Skylar Gaertner). However, soon James wants more in his life and this leads to strong marital discord and his engaging in shady and manipulative business practices at his real estate company job.

This will all eventually lead to predictable consequences, and the film became to me a very slow paced melodrama that I didn't really enjoy. The very vague and ambiguous ending certainly didn't help any either.