stelstargirl

Caught this just before it disappeared from Netflix. I hadn't planned on watching it, but something about the timing-late at night, a quiet house-made it feel like the right moment. Afterward, I found myself wavering between eight stars and six. The more I sat with it-and read what others had to say, both the praise and the pushback-the more I felt okay settling at seven.

"November" is gripping in the way only real-life horror stories can be. It doesn't waste time-it throws you right into the tension and doesn't let up. The focus stays almost entirely on the police investigation that followed the Paris attacks of November 13, 2015. It's a bold decision, and for a while, I thought it worked. You feel the urgency in every hallway conversation, every frantic phone call. But somewhere along the way, I started feeling distanced. The chaos becomes numbing. The characters blur together. I found myself wishing the film would slow down-not for exposition, but just to give us a glimmer of who these people are-their individual wants and needs.

There's this strange emptiness at the center of the film, and maybe that's intentional. Maybe we're meant to feel the machinery of justice grinding forward, indifferent to individual lives. But I missed the human angles-the victims, the city, the quiet grief. I kept thinking that this story might've worked better as a miniseries. Something longer, something that could have made space for the emotional aftermath as much as the procedural chase.

Still, I'm glad I watched it. It's a respectful, well-made film. But when it ended, I didn't feel closure-I felt questions. Not about the case, but about how we tell stories like this. Who do we center? Who gets left out? Maybe there's no perfect way to film a tragedy this complex. But maybe trying is still worth something.

Ugh... I was really torn between a 5 and 6 star on this one. If you're expecting "Cast Away," don't watch this. It wrangled an extra star from me mostly because of Defoe's performance. This could've been an artsy, metaphorical, thriller, but it didn't go far enough to quite make it there. Not enough meat on the bones for a standard suspense either, so it just winds up a bit hollow. The beautiful cinematography and setting grip you in the beginning, but I found myself checking to see how much was left of this film after only 30 minutes. I also fast forwarded through parts, which isn't something I normally do. Missed opportunity. It's too bad...

A friend and I went to watch this with great anticipation after watching several stellar reviews on YouTube from folks I typically share movie taste with. We left feeling pretty letdown and confused, I must say.

Thing is: this movie had lots going for it-a great concept, plenty of opportunity for character-building, brilliant performances, and it looked great. Was it "the scariest movie in the last year or so"? Hardly. But whatever-horror fans are easily desensitized to thrills and chills.

What this movie lacked was intelligent, fleshed out and compelling storytelling and characterization (a depressing trend in today's cinema). Frustratingly, the subplots and characters were all there to exploit but wound up going nowhere-totally underdeveloped. There were also lots of interesting details dropped in the first act or so of the film that were never followed up on, to the point that you left, wondering why these things were even introduced in the first place because they served no real story purpose.

I can't emphasize enough the acting talent of the leads because it would have taken very little to create fully developed character arcs here and a narrative that your audience is really invested in.

There's no amount of technical skill that can make up for sloppy or rushed writing. If these newcomers spent more time analyzing what makes a good story and the craft of characterization, and slightly less time on the technical aspects of filmmaking, they ultimately wind up with better films. I hope they develop their craft further and take such feedback to heart because writing as an art form is being sorely underemphasized in filmmaking, to its great detriment.