Review by Hallelujah289

Dave McKean, illustrator, continues to push his bounds as a filmmaker, this time incorporating his surreal fairytale aesthetic into a drama between middle-aged friends, over one weekend at a getaway by the sea. The film explores themes of loss of children, starting new families, and the comfort of fantasy art versus the reality of the world's problems, biological clocks, and unspoken issues.

Some of the surreal aspects did not quite resolve in the alternate reality I thought they would, but were more representations of one character's inner world and struggles, and then another character's, and another's. This film has elements of the fantastic, lush CGI sequences of children in makeup and origami birds, but is still at heart a drama between friends, and resolves with them driving off to normal lives, while saying they will never forget the weekend for the catharsis it brought.

I did enjoy the film beyond its aesthetic, and thought the dialogue was sharp and didn't lose touch with ordinary speech. The music was exotic and middle eastern sounding, which suited one character's wardrobe choices but I'm not sure quite tied in otherwise. I did find the catharsis the characters experienced to be genuine. A rather pleasant film, that flirts with the pretentious but in the end dispenses with its own "whiffle," as one character calls it.