ThurstonHunger

If I may recommend watching this with a friend or friends, I suspect you will enjoy the post-movie discussion more than the actual movie.

There is a messy melange of ideas contained within the film, and after watching I am a little curious where the writers/director stand on having children.

An old cliche goes - "insanity is hereditary, you get it from your children" - which could apply here, but in this dystopian future how you get your children might be even more insane. Another old adage is that you have to get a license to drive a car, to fish, to hunt but NOT to have children - well that too rises to the surface.

As for science fiction, this is an interesting and somewhat rare example where it could potentially be presented as a play. Saying that as a cautionary piece of advice as it might turn off a lot of sci-fi diehards. Think the slowest Star Trek episode you ever watch, overloaded with about six morality plays.

I did watch this with my son, and he had seen some previews (I had seen none, just brief mention of the film and Himesh Patel - and that had me intrigued). Based on the previews, my son thought maybe this was a comedy - and in hindsight I can see how he came to that conclusion.

Then again is comedy + repetition a sort of sadism? That word came to mind as the assessment wore on - and in the long denouement we catch a clue as to why. Although even in that post-Assessment wrap-up, the film goes after too many topics - "married to work" aka the Matrix blue pill if you will, or whether life is better defined by death (see Anne Rice vampire tales), or what is the crucial mistake when something fails (a detective defective story) or what to neglect when you are expecting.

Anyways, the film was a somewhat unique combination of engaging, frustrating and unfulfilling - but for us at least opened up various vistas for discussion afterwards.

And that I think is the best offspring produced by The Assessment.

I am old enough to recall hearing about this as an adaptation of King Lear when it came out.

Wasn't it also a sort of swan song/return/farewell to Kurosawa's earlier movies? Anyways for some reason I never saw it, so when one of my sons mentioned it the other day I was happy to rent it and watch it with him and his brother.

Watching in an actual theater might have enhanced the experience, sweeping panorama shots (horses surging across a stream, a distant army atop a faraway hill watching vulture-like as two other clans square off below, a castle in flames, and throughout clouds that seem to take direction from Kurasawa and dominate the screen.

Tatsuya Nakadai in the "Leer" role is so expressive with his face (and kudos to hair and make-up, the tones of blue/red/grey give a startling ghastly look). Add to that his physical work, moving between catatonic trance and then frightened insect prance at times. Very eerie, such a unique portrayal of dementia. When he speaks, and I would say the same for many of the royal family and their trusted fool, every line is hyper-dramatic and shouty. I guess they wanted operatic heights to scale the bulwarks of the fortresses or to make a rather simple story seem more charged, but it wore me out emotionally at times.

That said, the loyal lieutenant-like characters - I found their measured speech and decisive action highlighted them as the truly noble characters in the film. Speaking more sternly, and speaking truth to power - and not just the fox statue allegory scene. Meanwhile speaking of other more literal "characters," a minor point the subtitles were often lost in the background of the stunning cinematography. My son paused our viewing and looked to see if we could change the font color at one point.

Overall a grand spectacle that may have lost something in translation. Or not, a simple message of ashes to literal ashes, dust to blood-soaked dust comes through loud (despite all shouting ;>) and clear no matter how wealthy, or conniving you may be there is no escaping your fate. Even Buddha's blessing gets blown away.

Somehow this 2018 film bubbled up in the forefront of feeds for both my wife and I here in summer 2025. If it happens for you think twice before committing, the cutting and pacing of the trailer is far better than the actual film.

Ben Mendelsohn's apathetic ways are contagious, to those around in him in the film and to us the viewer. He's had some sort of epiphany to quit the rat race, and we hear him fumble half-heartedly through such a speech at a cocktail party early on in the film.

But half-hearted is as good as it gets. It's a bland coming of beige kind of film, with early retirement and erectile dysfunction and an omnipresent ennui that almost make drugs look appealing.

Edie Falco the actress and her character in here should have maybe worked on Holofcener for more focus on screen and in the story. I sense Falco was working nearly as hard as the search algorithm tuners to spark interest in this film.

Calling this a black comedy is an unfunny joke. Laughs are pretty rare. That said I can handle a subtle slice of life, but like the most engaging character in "The Land of Steady Habits," the movie keeps running away from a chance for something more poignant.