Stray

An exceptional piece of filmmaking. Really can see such a clear vision in the direction and loved the sense of restraint as well as the spaciousness. The cinematography was incredible too, which is to be expected with Ari!

Character creation is quite effective in the early part of the movie, and I wanted to know what was going to happen to these people. However my interest was squandered by long, s-l-o-w scenes, some of them apparently quite pointless. There is little to sustain interest or sympathy with the protagonists. And the editor should have gone snip! snip! at just about every point. I finally found the way to watch the movie, which was with the fast-forward on. There's not much dialogue, so you're not missing much. The male character is an unattractive young man, and the female lead is too old and too good looking for her part. As you'll gather, I didn't like it and can't recommend it. Not a competently made movie.

I expected nothing when I turned on this movie, except a decent story. And it didn't even have that. Man, this was a chore to sit through. I couldn't even get in to the character of Jack (the male protagonist) to empathise with his pain. If I'm not feeling what a character is feeling, then the story has failed its duty. Even though the actor was solid in expressing inner turmoil, I just couldn't get in to Jack's shoes to understand where he is coming from, and what's he regretting or is traumatised about. It pretty much felt superficial to me. Only, if there was more of a reason to care for Jack, other than him being an aimless mumbo-dumbo with much depth to his character, I'd have rated the film much higher.

The female protagonist, Grace, is also a blank slate of a character who, coupled with Jack, has nothing much to do until way into an hour or so. The sexual tension between Grace and Jack, when they first meet, is released so quick, random and abrupt, that I started laughing my butt off. The only redeeming things from this would be the excellent camerawork, solid sound design, and a bravura central performance by Keiran Charnock. Other than that, this film only adds to the countless forgotten films of our world that only tell pretentious and surface level stories, with long and extended shots where nothing happens visually, narratively or thematically.

The 5 stars I've given this film are very much about everything EXCEPT the plot which is sketchy to say the least. Might be a good future movie there once the full story is completed.

This could have been a 7 or 8 star movie with realistic dialogue, meaning at least trying to simulate normal conversations. The lack of talking seems contrived to create atmosphere. Forced minimalism, in other words.

One unexplained scene could have been a set accident merged into the plot.

In general, movie speech tends to be more stilted and measured than real life, but it becomes hard to watch when subdued to this degree. Save the silent parts for alone times where they belong.

But it's got nice scenery, as others have noted.