I Think We're Alone Now

Cinematography: top! Actors: top Music: loved it!

Story: ???

Looks like I'm one of the few who likes this film, so I had to drop a note. I admit it's almost too understated. But I like that approach, not having everything spelled out. The story is deep between the lines, at least until the confrontation. There's almost too much exposition for me in that moment, since they had already established such a sideways manner of presentation. Like "Night Eats The World" (which I also liked) I think the post-apocalyptic setting creates viewer expectations, and the film never has any intention of going down those avenues. I enjoyed having my expectations thwarted,in this case. About 20 minutes in I realized it wasn't going to be the film I had assumed, and just went along with it. I get why many people didn't like it, but it doesn't deserve that awful rating. It's not an action flick, it's not suspense or thriller. It a post-apocalyptic love story. And the cinematography is spectacular.

I wanted to like this movie more than I do. Great performances by the whole cast, and I liked how they approached the post-apocalyptic wasteland concept in a more benign way. Production quality seemed decent enough as well.

What I didn't like:

• The audio. Subtitles are basically a requirement. The audio levels are terrible: the dialog is barely audible at twice the volume I normally watch movies at. The soft and mumbled dialog throughout, although fits the atmosphere, made it that much harder to understand really Any of the actors speak. When you think you finally have the volume level ok in the near silent dialog scenes, they suddenly cut to high volume music that blasts your ears. Possibly the strongest example of a 'volume-up/volume-down' movie I've seen and it was frustrating me throughout the movie.

• Slow and meandering, both plot-wise and pacing-wise. Not a whole lot happens in this movie. A number of arbitrary scenes of them simply living their everyday lives in the empty city and doesn't really add anything to the story. Many of the shots moved very slow and took what seemed like forever to play out, with a few done entirely in slow-mo. I found myself skipping ahead 10 seconds at a time in parts and not missing anything of importance. Not sure if they were trying to go for a more artistic look or build a sense of stagnation/boredom in their basically empty world, it felt more like they were padding the run-time in my opinion.

• The ending. I don't want to spoil anything but it felt like the writers ran out of ideas and didn't know how to end it, so they threw in some completely random 'twist' out of left-field that had nothing to do with anything up to that point in the movie prior. You'll probably be left with a puzzled look on your face thinking, "...What?"

It still held my attention for the most part and it was a bit of a different take on the apocalypse-type movie. I might recommend watching it if you are a Peter Dinklage fan or have nothing else to watch, but I wouldn't schedule a movie night with friends around this or anything.

The trouble with that movie is easy explained - top cast and top acting (Peter Dinklage, Elle Fanning) vs. a slow story with a badly executed "twist".

All in all watchable but with that scenario and those fine actors I Think We're Alone Now had the potential to be a new classic on the post-apocalyptic genre front, but the plot is very slow and especially the final act feels forced and rushed and not well thought thru (and its kinda cliche).

Anyway, all in all a rather ambivalent experience but still watchable - for fans of the genre and/or the actors.

I was able to see a sneak preview of I Think We're Alone Now at "The Female Gaze" Film Festival in NYC. I had high expectations for the cinematography in this movie by Reed Morano and they exceeded all of them. The lighting was gorgeous and the set design was spot on.

While there isn't a lot of action or answers that one might be looking for in a post apocalyptic flick, you get all the story telling you need out of the nuanced performances by Peter Dinklage and Elle Fanning who share an undeniable chemistry.