Lost Transmissions

This is a heartbreaking story about how schizophrenia destroys a man's life. I find the story very engaging, and very real. It is great to see Simon Pegg in a serious role, and he's convincing in it too.

Lost Transmissions is a drama that follow Hannah (portrayed by Juno Temple), a shy songwriter who realizes her friend/producer Theo Ross (portrayed by Simon Pegg) is not taking his medication and suffering from schizophrenia. Along the way, Hannah is also trying to chase her own dreams as she is hired by musician Dana Lee (portrayed by Alexandra Daddario) to help write music for her next album.

The film portrays Simon Pegg is one of his best performances. I have not seen all of his films, but this is by far the best emotional performance I have seen from him.

Unfortunately, the film is very boring. It follows Theo as he goes around LA dealing with episodes of hallucination and having Hannah trying to save him. I found myself continuously going on my phone or failing to actually stay tuned in because I just was not into the story. So while I thought the film was acted well, I probably wouldn't recommend it - 5/10.

Simon Pegg in a serious role? Well, he aint bad. And Juno Temple of course is a great actress as well. But what we have here are 2 comedy actors, carrying a serious movie. That didnt work out to well.

The bad: lack of genuine, credible drama.

Not any good? It is a worthy and sympathetic attempt at telling a story about mental disorders, which isnt a very popular subject in the movie industry. Perhaps suited for educational viewing? But it isnt gripping or impressive enough that I would dare recommend it.

Better watch "One flew over the Cukoos nest" (1975) instead. That Jack Nicholson classic about mental disorders will blow your mind!

It begins well with Juno Temple playing an introverted creative who meets Simon Pegg, an extroverted producer. An interesting friendship begins and the audience is wondering if it will result in success, betrayal or failure. Nice.

She then quickly learns of his mental health problems and Pegg's character does a lightning-fast switcheroo into jumble of weak dialogue and fairly generic 'crazy talk'. This is not to say that people with mental health issues don't often share similar problems (hearing transmissions, grand conspiracy, etc.) but those problems seem to be indulged here for no particular reason. The rest of the movie languishes on his deterioration and we're not entirely sure why Juno's character is the one we're supposed to be following. It then dissolves into various critiques of health and public services, which Juno's character is often reduced to spectating.

The acting is fairly decent throughout, though Pegg feels miscast and struggles with some of the material. He's usually good at sincerity, but feels out of place here (and not in a thematic way).

Despite its agreeable message, it is a movie that lacks a strong story and treats its handful of characters far too gently.

The movie throws you into characters and their dynamics without ever establishing them in a way that...I don't know...makes sense. To the story. In the movie. Which generally appears to not know what it wants. Except maybe have the protagonist be stupid as hell in their dealing with Theo.

Which...it was hard to gage whether or not that was on purpose. Because no writer/director can be that oblivious. And Juno Temple did play her very much a like an idiotic LA type.

But then again the movie also played everything pretty straight. Except maybe for Daddario's character, who the movie sort of made fun of as a representation of the current LA music scene. All the while having the protagonist and their circle be equally as pretentious.

I don't know. I wanted to catch up on what Simon Pegg had been up to, and it had a 5 point average on here, and that one is pretty accurate. Pegg and Temple weren't bad technically, their characters were just written terribly. Or just integrated into the story very badly. Unfortunately that can make really good acting look really stupid.

I really liked the stylistic vision of the movie, though. Even though the sound editing could have used some more work.

But the general style, even if not groundbreaking or amazing or anything, was the movie's saving grace.