She Will

I'm an old lady. I teethed on Brecht, MacLeish and Albee. I came of age on the smoky balconies of 'foreign film' theaters. My husband declares, "if it's weird, you'll watch it." Little annoys me more than watching a film by a director who gets in the way of their own art - like She Wills.

The film has a very good folk horror story, finely crafted performances and an intriguing point of view, but it's thin on characterization and director Colbert's repetitively obscure ( almost navel gazing) storytelling style often leaves the audience in the cold.

Like most people, I either like a film or I don't. I can't recall ever seeing a film that left me longing to be engaged.

First off, I must say that the cinematography is absolutely stunning and the acting was great. What made the film worth watching however, was Clint Mansell's score. A masterpiece.

There's basically no real dialogue in the film. It's 98% imagery, i didn't mind at first, but halfway through it became so redundant and exhausting to watch a film with no conversations. This uber-Indie, "i'm so alternative" avant-garde nonsense became unspeakably annoying. The whole film is just a collection of vivid dreams and paranoias, with one or two words thrown in.

Also, easily one of the most abrupt, "what just happened here?" kind of endings.

I only finished watching it because i loved the music. I'm quite disappointed. I really wanted to love it, but it was 100% just beautifully boring.

My recommendation? Skip the movie and just listen to the soundtrack.

As usual, a lot of the reviews here will tell more about the reviewers than they will about the movie...'slow...boring...all about evil men...seen this (too) many times in the last few years'.

It is slow if you want freddy kruger or jason. But it's not that kind of horror movie...in fact, i recently mentioned in a letter to a friend that there should be a 'supernatural' category, rather than 'horror' because that would warn the zombie lovers that it's not that kind of movie and save them the frustration of watching and me the frustration of reading their usual type of review... it's mostly a visually stimulating movie...producing just the right mood for the story which seems only to be brought out in a few places...but, for me, it was very satisfying...a feast for the eyes.

Krige, as usual, does well in this film...as do all the other players whom, mostly, seem peripheral to the small story at the core.

Not horror as much as supernatural and not for the red bull guzzling kids.

The difficulty in writing and directing such a metaphorical, artful story such as this is that it becomes very easy to veer into pretentious and inaccessible territory.

There are times in She Will when this does happen, and the logical rules of the story and the feelings of the characters are often unclear. But thankfully, the film never stays in this territory for too long.

What keeps this tale investing is the quiet, mysterious performances, the odd yet entrancing visual effects/cinematography, and the satisfying pace at which the curtain is pulled back and the audience gets answers to their questions.

At times the metaphors are too heavy-handed to the point that it's a disservice to the characters, but most of the time it was refreshing to see subtle nuances in a movie like this that has a clear feminist message.

Certainly this isn't a film for everyone, but for those who like thought-provoking art, there's quite a bit of good to be found here.

I knew pretty much nothing about Charlotte Colbert's "She Will" when I started watching it, making it more interesting. This story of a faded actress who seeks treatment in a facility located on the former site of burning women accused of witchcraft has some intense scenes. The intensity is mostly found in the actress's disturbing memories. In that sense, I guess that the movie's saying that the worst horrors are the real ones.

While not anything great, this movie is more interesting than movies where people walk into rooms to get butchered. On top of that, it gives us some great shots of the Scottish countryside. Worth seeing for that, if nothing else.