Portrait-of-a-Statue

I would have enjoyed this show a lot more if I could actually see what was going on. It has a great premise and is well-written but half the time I had no idea which woman was in a scene. I'm not kidding. The women were all skinny and surgerized--it takes place in Rich Hedge Fund Ville-- and it would have been difficult to tell which woman was talking even if I could see them. The whole thing was WAY TOO DARK, obscuring reaction shots. Reacting is half of acting and the reactions were totally obliterated. I really don't know how the series ended because it was too dark to tell. There you go. No spoilers.

...of Crimes against Lighting a Set. Gripping story, great acting--with two notably off-putting exceptions--but I could hardly tell what was going on because the movie was way too dark. Why bother building sets if the viewer can't see them? Half the time, I couldn't tell where the action was taking place. Why hire actors who can express with their faces if the viewer can't see them? Yes, actors use their voices but it's important to actually see emotions conveyed on faces. Most of the time, I couldn't tell who was speaking, let alone what they were expressing with their eyes. It was ridiculous. As for the notably bad acting, give the award for worst female performance to Ruth Negga and worst male performance to. O-T Fagbenle. They both act with a capital A. You could see them thinking about their performances. There was nothing natural or believable about either of their performances--all mannerisms and look-at-me and listen to how I pause and inflect. Etc. Etc. Etc. Every time I could tell it was one of them ( I had trouble seein them, remember) they took me right out the the story with their attention seeking. One last thing, Molto's cat was a ginger. It couldn't have been a female. Ginger cats are male. Looks like Warner Brothers needs to hire a new fact checker along with a new cinematographer.

From the opening sex scene involving menstrual blood, this movie was distasteful and unpleasant. But it wasn't only the fluids that made it unpleasant, it was the soulless office scenes and the humorless vulgarity of the main characters. The lengthy conversations about finance in the office scenes were unintelligibly boring and the head honcho of the office was woefully miscast, looking more like a coarse manual laborer than a high powered executive. (And, yes, I know manual laborers are essential, but admit it, the images of executives and manual laborers are not interchangeable.) Emily and Luke, the main characters, cannot in any way be rooted for. The viewer is given nothing about them to care about so their relationship is ultimately unimportant to us. Watch this movie only if you want to ruin your mood.