Beautiful Friend

I've never felt inclined to bother writing a review before but after watching Beautiful Friend & then seeing the very harsh IMDB rating I felt obliged to do so.

This film is really simple & very interesting. It's filmed from the point of view of Daniel who is living through the COVID Pandemic & already feels isolated & marginalised by society, he wants to find love but has no understanding of what women want, how they should be approached & sees them as only from his own perspective without ever considering that he's only seeing a very shallow & surface level view of the women he, for want of a better word, meets.

He's what's often referred to as an incel & his rapid oscillation from viewing the objects of his attraction as near perfect, to creatures beneath contempt certainly puts you in mind of some of the darker corners of online discourse around women. Despite this, the film does an excellent job of making the protagonist (?), if not relatable exactly, at least understandable, he articulates his thoughts & feelings throughout in a way that probably contravenes some laws of filmmaking but it works well.

The two main actors are fantastic, watching Madison interact with Daniel, seeing her making decisions following a timely introspective is truly heart wrenching.

The camerawork & cinematography are unusual but they work brilliantly.

A really interesting film that takes a difficult & possibly unpopular approach.

The main guy and antagonist is pretty disgusting. He kidnaps, rapes, and tortures people. At one point it was suggested he also murdered.

His inner monologue is disturbing, because like in the modern world some of it is understandable or even relatable. Incels aren't born incels, they develop a narrative which they use to justify what they do.

That's not dissimilar to the Saw films, in that Jigsaw also creates a justification for his crimes. The key difference is Jigsaw justified it based on what others had done. This guy justifies what he does simply because what he has convinced himself that he's owed by society.

This feels like a relevant modern fable and cautionary tale.

A gripping yet unsettling portrayal of manipulation and survival. The film dives deep into the twisted mind of Daniel, a chilling kidnapper, and the desperate lengths the victim goes to for survival.

It exposes the raw, horrifying reality of kidnappings that's rarely depicted in cinema. At times, when you think there's hope for the protagonist Madison, the film rips that hope away, leaving you in despair.

At times the film makes you almost feel sorry for Daniel , which only adds to the discomfort.

I felt disgusted while watching, but it provoked such a strong reaction that I couldn't ignore its message. Took me five attempts to finish-hard to watch, but its brutal honesty stays with you.

Despite the cloying nature of its painstaking efforts to leave the viewer with the feeling that "this says a lot about society" ultimately this movie's biggest sin is that it's just kind of boring. Pretty to look at at times, but at no point does any of its attempts at a message or to shock us add up to something engaging or fresh. If you're going to try this hard to be edgy or hold a mirror up to the viewer or whatever, you've gotta make it more interesting or weirder than this.

The main actor was perfectly fine in his efforts to personify /b/, and I seemed to disagree with the filmmaker in thinking that the more interesting character was Madison.

There is some nice cinematography here and at least trying to get into the mind of a sociopath is interesting but ultimately the movie is really dull, moves slow and says nothing.

What did they expect it to be,'Incel Kidnappers have feeling too?'.

The monotone delivery of the main character becomes annoying after twenty minutes and the lack of dynamicism in the camera movement comes off as amateurish.

Avoid.