This is one of those movie that's a little bit heartbreaking because, while it succeeds at some elements, it fails miserably at others.
Visually the film is sumptuous, though a tad dark. The team behind it were meticulous when it came to the costumes, the make-up, the cinematography, the set decoration, lighting, and even the editing.
Which begs the question of what went wrong...
Basically, the movie is overacted and not well written. When it comes to the script, it seems like the writers were simply trying too hard, which carries through in the delivery. To be clear, I don't believe the actors failed to achieve the director's vision; the problem is that vision lacked anything even resembling subtlety.
As the movie progresses you end up losing interest quickly because you cannot care about the characters because they aren't really characters so much as caricatures. Instead of fleshed out human beings, the story revolves around one-dimensional cartoon like people.
Consequently, whether they live or die, whether or not they're guilty, whether or not they seem happy or sad affects the viewer very little.
Put another way, there is simply no one in this movie you feel emotionally invested in.
In the end, this film feels like a missed opportunity. If the people behind it had invested half as much time on the story as they did on its appearance, it could have been brilliant; instead, it's tedious.
