Winner

Winner (2024) has an interesting base concept, really good technical direction, and the lead actress is fantastic. The problems come from the little details of the plot, with some things happening ridiculously quickly, others way too slowly, and almost every other character outside of Chloe being such an extreme exaggeration.

Alex (Emille Lacsa) has absolutely no nuance; whatever the worst thing the character can say is, that's what he says. The same goes for the mother (Corinne Kelly) who seems just as emotionally abusive towards Chloe as Alex. The movie so exaggerates the two's negative qualities that eventually they become caricatures instead of real characters.

The main plot is pretty melodramatic. There's not only blackmail, but also a snake venom threat, which is straight out of an old pulp mystery novel. I really liked the overall concept, but not every piece of the puzzle fits together. It's mostly little things - like the pacing and the way no one seems to think the blackmailer's methods are strange - but there's enough of them that the movie just feels jumbled.

Having said all of that, Koko Marshall is electric to watch as Chloe. She's the most naturalistic of the entire cast and even when she has bizarre dialogue, it comes out sounding believable. The technical production was also great; editing, sound, lighting, camera angles, all of it felt polished. The whole movie takes place mostly in one small room, so it could have quickly become visually stale if the production team hadn't known what they were doing, but they definitely did.

Basically, it's a well-directed movie with a very talented lead, but the script is not as developed as I'd have liked.

Holy wow was this bad. It might be apropos that the movie both opens and ends with the main character sitting on the can (as if the movie is intentionally making a turd sandwich).

Every character in this is despicable. Especially the main lead who is the absolute only person onscreen in the entire film. Even if you might think she doesn't really seem so bad, just wait... just you wait... The silly voices and goofy hats may be annoying, but "despicable" really is the apt word to apply to everyone seen or heard in this movie.

Overall the whole thing just has the feel of a bad radio show. The voice acting is blatantly staged with everyone taking turns speaking at all times, careful not to step on anyone's lines or grunts or outbursts. Every person she talks to over the phone even sound like they're all in the very same sound booth right next to each other.

There's even a strangely shot scene of the main character having (what sounds like) separate conversations with multiple others over the phone, except it's not a conference call and it's all filmed within the same conversation within the same continuous shot.

There is also very little fluctuation in the audio mix to help differentiate varying levels of sound. A prime example being the phone call with her brother who is supposed to be running around inside of a "loud" dance club, except his voice sounds exactly as clear as every other "phone call" in the movie with zero background noise until the brief minute he says that he left the bathroom and we hear music playing at half the volume you would hear when you're put on hold.

Now I'll add ONE POSITIVE:

This movie is not intended as a comedy, but there is this one line that almost made me do a spit-take. It had a set-up and punchline baked in, which may not have been intentional but (if like me you didn't notice the push handles on the back of her chair earlier) after spending 20 minutes of the movie wondering why the main character is never shown standing you begin to deduce that maybe she is paralyzed.

Which she confirms during an argument with her brother (the set up) to which he claps back with (the punchline) telling us how it happened:

"You're the one who were twerking on an eight foot rigging!"

Again, this is not a comedy. But that was hilarious. Even if the movie is dead serious about it every time it mentions it.

................. MY RATING SCALE .................

• 1. Reserved for Poorly Produced/Amateur Video
• 2. Utterly Terrible
• 3. Really Bad
• 4. Mediocre
• 5. Perfectly Average
• 6. Surprisingly Entertaining
• 7. Very Good
• 8. Incredibly Good
• 9. Exceptionally Great
• 10. Reserved for my Personal Favorites.