Don't Go

Don't Go: Difficult to categorise: horror, time slips, attempting to change past events, maybe a touch of the supernatural about it. Ben blames himself (as does his wife Hazel) for the death of his child, Molly, who died in an accident. His guilt is worsened by where he really was when Molly perished. Ben and Hazel move to the West of Ireland to renovate a hotel but instead of being a new start Ben has strange dreams. He is transported back to a time when all three of them were on a beach. Even when awake he keeps seeing the slogan Seas The Day. He becomes obsessed with the idea of actually time travelling to avert the accident. The oddities of his situation are well illustrated - he has conversations with people who aren't really there yet seems to be able to being physical objects back from his time-slip dreams. The themes of guilt (plus hiding the truth)and the need for redemption run Don't Go but the realisation that redemption comes at a price is made all too clear. Reality (and Ben's imaginary conversations) is generally shot with a darker filter while the past beach scenes are in brighter colours. The film is unevenly paced with too much time used to set up the critical scenes, it might have worked better as a 60 minute episode of an anthology series. Directed by David Gleeson from a script by Ronan Blaney and John Collins. Saw it on RTE. 6/10.

Such an antidote to today's sex, violence, bad language and CGI. If you like all of those things, don't bother with this movie. However, if you want a mysterious and emotionally-moving story, cleverly told and portrayed by actors with a convincing range of real emotions, treat yourself to this. A slowly unfolding story of tragedy, with clever metaphors interwoven into the storyline. A moving film which leaves you with a feeling of emotional involvement. Worth watching twice, as at the end of the first viewing you realise that there were a host of references and clues that you missed first time round. Thank you, Ireland, for spurning the 'popular' genre of films and giving us something thoughtful.

I am not sure what to make of this film, perhaps I needed to suspend belief and believe in the characters more. Father apparently loses child and has recurring dreams about the last day although why or how the child died is not mentioned or shown. Then we have the situation where this man appears to be having a breakdown because of his grief. The premise of the story appears to question what is real and what isn't and just left me bewildered.

Mystery movies are my favorite genre so I'm always excited when it's one of those stories with twists and turns but in this case it just fell short. The plot was much too confusing, not that original, with a slow repeating pace. The cast wasn't bad so no actor has to be blamed for the lower score. It's just the story that is not that captivating, unless maybe you lost a child yourself at one point so you can understand the despair of the father more. I can understand that people are going to like this movie but for me it was just not good enough, at least not to be remembered.

Not quite what I thought but enjoyable enough for an afternoons viewing . Dorf doss well as does Melissa George , nice twist at the end