I see that Agnieszka Lukasiak directed a few movies before but this is his first screenplay and he also directed it. Gaia Weiss and Anthony Boyle are two relatively unknown people in the industry they did a good job with the material, and I guess the guidance of director, they are okay actors I didn't notice any particularly bad acting. I am not sure didn't look into it if the movie has really low budget or there were some other issue like... Is the story bad because there was no money for more ambitious project or is it the other way around. Pacing drags like... Oh it drags. It crawls. Obviously the stretched it due to lack of material so it had to drag otherwise it would around half an hour to under an hour, if the pacing was neither rushing nor dragging. As audience, like Tom we are bound to a luxurious modern home which is also for the duration of the movie, to us that stayed with the story-our prison. Crutches for Tom would do, he is like a house cat, or dog, who only waits for it's owner to come back from work, and restaurant, and bar. I can analyze both him and his girlfriend any for longer of duration of the movie even though they are not very well developed characters, they are very developed when it comes to being illogical and toxic to each other though. Agnieszka Lukasiak if you're reading I'm wondering was this inspired by Shining by Stephen King, film adaptation not the novel, it seems vaguely inspired. The Shining aims to create a psychologically unsettling and disturbing experience for the audience. Its effectiveness in doing so is largely due to its oppressive atmosphere, gradual descent into madness of the main character etc. It's like it attempted that but unsuccessfully, personally The Shining didn't do it for me either. The Substance (2025) did it well but of course I hate it for it so even with its flaws that this movie has I dislike it way less than that film. In the beginning characters were likeable they should've shown more warmth at times that they had in the beginning it wouldn't make them so annoying to me. Since they were so annoying and rude and toxic to each other it made me dislike that which in turn made me not care for them, if they killed each other I would be okay, that's bad but so was almost everything else about this piece of art. The anesthetics of house and cinematography, scenes and the visuals are good they convey some tone and atmosphere, a certain dark anesthetics. The ladies in white describing emotions, not everyone reacts the same when feeling what was described characters felt by the way I really needed some more atleast somewhat positive moments in the movie. And despite choice of camera work we don't really see much of the plot do we, when it comes to Ani's life outside when Tom is at home all we see is him wimping pretty much. And he did get out of the house to see the Ani's boss which we also miss. It's like someone locked yall to that house and said this is all you will get make a movie. And I'm really trying not to be harsh on this movie like really really, I rated and left some raspy and jarring reviews and ratings to movies with much more structure, coherence and consistency, validity and reason to them. This was drama for the sake of drama with undertones of trying to explore themes that it wanted to explore. There is a theme to this film-too sentimental characters and people do very dumb things, like failing to think and failing to solve problems instead making more problems. Also minimalism in this movie is almost extreme is it intentionally or unintentionally done I do not know but reducing unnecessary visual and narrative elements to focus on the core story, emotions, and characters... Left this film almost completely devoid of these elements. Next project should try and be a healthy mix of other styles and concepts. Maybe maximalist approach and then stripping it between maximalism and minimalism. This shouldn't not be a discouragement to write and direct and make more movies, if you shoot enough shots, or arrows, something is bound to hit the target.
