Wander Darkly

Married couple Adrienne (Sienna Miller) and Matteo (Diego Luna) has a car accident. She seems to be dead as she exists in purgatory living out one memory after another.

The first half struggles to find a narrative drive. It needs a mystery, a goal, or a point to the story. In a way, it's stuck in purgatory like the protagonist. There is a mystery to be had if the film doesn't start with her in a morgue drawer. The first half could be her struggling to figure out if she's dead. The second half does find a couple of points and it gets interesting. All in all, there is some fine acting and this is a fine small indie.

I hadn't cried in a long time. There's really not a lot to say about this film that the watcher shouldn't experience for themselves and that hasn't been said my past reviewers.

Wander Darkly tells the story of Adrienne and Matteo, a couple whose fractured relationship dances on a knife's edge when a tragic car accident unfolds. The movie has a great ending and some good performances both from Sienna Miller and Diego Luna. However the film is sometimes confused, predictable and slow.

Rating: 5,7.

This movie makes sense when you know that it is mostly the writer-director's own story. She and her husband were in a bad automobile accident and when she regained consciousness she wouldn't see. Thus the title 'Wander Darkly.' She developed that experience into this fictional story.

The couple are Sienna Miller as Adrienne and Diego Luna as Matteo. They are not married but decided to have a child who is a few months old when the movie starts. They have relationship baggage that needs to get sorted out and their accident is the catalyst for that.

It would be impossible for me to write a logical narrative after viewing the movie, in many ways it is like watching a series of dream sequences. However I enjoyed it, both lead actors are very good in their roles, especially Miller.

I watched it at home on DVD from my public library. My wife skipped, she was on a golf trip.

If you're too happy and want to bring yourself down a notch, watch this movie. That wouldn't even be so bad, except that at the end, you realize that you've been duped.

As the film starts, we're introduced to an, at first, seemingly happy young couple, Adrienne and Metteo, with a new baby and a new house. But, as the layers of the onion are peeled back, we realized that they're not really happy at all. In fact, there's major doubts about fidelity and commitment on both sides. They've way over extended themselves financially and have to depend on her parents for babysitting and support. Matteo and her parents do not get along at all. The fact Matteo hasn't ask her to marry him probably doesn't help.

It's date night and Matteo has forgotten all about it. In the car they argue and there is talk of splitting up. Matteo is distracted, causing a terrible wreck. At this point the movie takes a "Jacob's Ladder" turn. Don't believe anything you see from here on.

After the big reveal, the movie ends on a sappy note designed to wring a final tear from the audience. Sienna Miller, who plays Adrienne, is the main reason to watch this, if you feel like putting yourself through it.