Sanctuary

In a world that makes you feel fragile and brittle, you get your kicks from being ridiculed, belittled, cleaning round the toilet stem, while your taunter does condemn, as they wait for you to conjure, your remittal. It plays out to a strict script but then a tangent, as it seems you've come across a steeper descent, smoke and mirrors might explain, is this for real or just a game, just who's genuinely showing, their lament. All in all it's quite a curious entangle, although dependant on your perspective and angle, the dialogue creates, a connection, of love and hate, where two people force themselves right through the mangle.

While it is not a perfect film, Sanctuary does win points for it's creativity and craft. The story is handled with care, although it is a bit bloated. However, this allows the viewers the full view of the situation, something that I appreciated. It really doesn't skimp on the details.

The two leads are fantastic in their respective roles and manage to be the only actors on screen for the entire runtime, which is a feat I certainly applaude. Not many actors or actresses can pull that off without the audience feeling exhausted by their performance, especially with having to do such long takes as well. Very impressive.

Speaking of long takes, I really enjoyed the cinematography. The sweeping camera motions, and the way the moods are captured throughout are subdued just enough to not overshadow the narrative, but are wild enough for a slick presentation.

Coming to the ending, it was a bit predictable. But there's something about such a sweet ending that made me feel like these two deserved it. For all the mind games and the fighting, it felt like the right place, right time, even if it was a bit too convenient for this particular story. Any more would have felt like too much.

Overall, I recommend it. It has a few downfalls, but they are easily overlooked by the simple but charming story of a dominatrix and a rich kid falling in love through blackmail and vitriol.

3.5 secret videos out of 5.

Wherever I will meet Christopher Abbott, I will automatically join to watch. Add Margaret Qualley, which is some kind of fresh breeze of air in Hollywood and a diverse actress and you get of the chart chemistry and really great and all-over-the-place movie and plot. They are both going wild, Qualley especially.

It starts like a normal movie, but gets out of control very quickly until you cannot understand what is real and when are those two actors arrive to the plot itself or whether both still play a game for their own crazy purposes. Its like "Inception" of two characters that get a script in a script, within a script.

Both are very good at what they do and both are burning the screen on their own, separately and together. Its all about domination in relationships, in a fresh way of telling a story about couples and about any relationship type, when each takes the control and dictate the rules from his side, according to his strengths.

One cannot say too much, in order not to burn the plot details and spoil for others, but this specific one has enjoyed a focused movie with two main and only actors, that light up the screen with their energies and way of presenting each of both sides, at this endless game of man meets woman.

Fantastic and surprising, until it getting a little tiring. It had its good moments and it had moments when I though it wasn't an hour and a half movie, but longer. It was a small, unusual and rare jam, that is doing what it came to do and even does it quickly. Don't miss two brilliant actors go for it.

When is a game not a game? When it's real life? Is real life though, not a game? Aren't we all playing games all of the time in some way or another? Games, roles, responding to the situation, never quite sure what's real or not.

How much of this film was a game? Was their game, just part of a larger game? Is play the only way to be who you really are? Assuming a role to be the person you want to be and having another along for the journey?

In the early stages of the film I wondered why they cast Margret Qualley. She's pretty, and a very good actor, but this role is beneath her and she's not especially sexy, so she can't pull off the role of the dominatrix properly. Then it dawned on me: she wasn't playing a dominatrix, she was playing his girlfriend, playing a dominatrix.

There were some truths in there, not all of which we will ever know, as the interplay between role and reality was clever and vague, but we can guess at many them and still come to the same end conclusion.

I look forward to watching this again in the future and seeing if I can work any more of it out.

Now this is something that you don't see every day. Without spoiling it, it has some twists, some head scratching moments and some surprises.

It's not a psychological thriller for me, more like a twisted mental drama with some weird, funny, sad moments in it.

The plot is decent, the writing is good, the acting is A+. I was not a fan of the photography of it, some weird unecessary barrell rolls and tilts that just pushed me out of the moment. And it was a bit of a drag. I was a bit bored sometimes. It's not a boring movie, but some scenes and sections were dragged out a bit too much. It also feels like a theatre piece as the action is limited to one place and only 2 characters, but that place and those characters are utilised fully.

I could only give it a 6 because while I loved a ton of things about it, I just wasn't immersed fully. Not sure if it's the sometimes overly slow pace or editing, or what... I really enjoyed the movie but wasn't sad when it was over. I'd recommend it to anyone who likes minimalistic movies (few characters and places), less action more dialog and mind-games, interested in the human psyche and how parental expectations can influence us. This is a really good movie. For me it's not a super great one but definitely one worth watching.