Traumas de Infância

After hearing about (but not reading) the book I was a little excited for this film. Terrible let down. There is no real plot or even a narrative and I can't for the life of me understand why this gets placed under the Thriller genre. It is little more than a plodding collection of vignettes strung together with an inordinate number of slow-motion flashbacks. Seriously if just the flashbacks and montages were shown in realtime it would cut the runtime of this movie by half. Want to convey a memory of a happy family? Slow motion flashback of them kicking a ball in the yard. Angry family? Slow motion flashback of them yelling and punching. Repeat this over and over to fill the space where plot and character development would go.

The "trial" component feels forced as an unnecessary element (maybe to convince us it's a thriller?). There isn't one relationship in this movie we ever actually care about and, as if to add insult to injury, the star seems to magically reconcile a lifetime of bad choices in the last ten minutes! Too bad this was a really bad vehicle for some otherwise good talent.

This movie is journey about coming to terms with who you are and how you became that person.

The enigmatic Franco plays a deeply troubled writer who is trying to come to terms with his traumatic past and the heartbreakingly tumultuous relationship he had with his father. Along the way, he meets the beautiful Amber Heard. This is why I did not give the movie more stars. If it was the writers intent to portray her as damaged as he was, it was an epic fail. She came across as strong and self-assured -almost cocky at times - not what you would expect from someone reeling from childhood trauma. It was no fault of Heard's - her character was just badly written. Ed Harris rocks the screen, as usual, as the domineering father who haunts his dreams and creates the clouds of his past that he can't see through.

The mind is amazing - we can do all sorts of things to protect ourselves. The ability to alter our memories is only one tool of many. This one is worth your time.

"A father does what he has to do to protect his children." Stephen Elliott (Franco) is a successful writer who is going through a bout of writers block. He begins to find inspiration in a court case involving the murder of a woman by her husband. The trial begins to drag up painful memories of his own past and living with his father Neil (Harris). When Neil once again shows up Stephen begins to spiral and it effects every aspect of his life. This is a strange movie. The acting is great, as expected but the idea is a little generic and overused. The thing that really keeps the movie from being too cookie cutter are the actors. Franco does a great job playing the tortured soul, Heard is great as the confused girlfriend and Harris, as always, steals the movie and plays his part so perfect that you aren't sure if he is really as bad as Elliott portrays him. All that said this is a a decent movie but nothing to rush and see. Overall, great acting and casting really makes this movie better than it could have been. Worth a rent. I give this a B-.

Based on the book by Stephen Elliot by the same name, now although I haven't read it I assume that that did better at putting all the material together than the movie did.

There are some standalone scenes that are pretty solid but there's also some questionable ones that feels a bit random.

It's listed here as a crime/drama/thriller, but the crime elements is very limited and thriller even more so There is a subplot about a random murder-case involving a character played by Christian Slater but it doesn't have that big of importance in the long scheme of things, at least the movie didn't manage to convey it as it did.

The movie is about memories and perceptions of reality and how that can change in time.

The message and idea behind the movie is pretty clever and the acting is pretty good (save for maybe Amber Heard who feels a bit empty) and it's decent enough visually but for some reason it just doesn't quiet work as a whole.

Books on fiction and even more so autobiographical memoirs are always edited, self edited if you prefer. Even the most brutally frank of memoirs there is always a part so painful we don't want to tell the world and we hope that no one else is keeping track to tell it differently. That's what happens to James Franco on another of his quirky projects playing a writer who does his Adderall like peppermint candy.

Franco is covering the trial of wife killer Christian Slater and as the testimony rolls he sees some of his own life especially in his relationship with his estranged father Ed Harris who sees the same incidents and others he prefers to remember a bit differently. Franco and Harris have some great scenes together they are the heart of the film.

Editing our memories is the phenomenon this film chose to explore. If not the best of explanations it's a valiant attempt.