Review of My Joy (2010) by Drew N — 16 Dec 2014

I love my fair share of bleak and painful movies, but this one is incredibly mind-numbing and pointlessly boring. OK, so Russia is a bleak place, I get the picture. This message is overvalued by critics because it's paired with very good directing. The thing is, the directing doesn't change the terrible script. The good directing is the only thing keeping me from considering this movie a 0/10.

It's not that hard to make everything feel grey, what's important is where you take that feeling, and this film takes it nowhere. I understand that this is the whole point of the movie, but that's why it's not a good movie. There are always deep intricacies in human existence even when we run into dead ends, but this movie ignores everything except the dead ends. If you want to see a movie that creates this kind of feeling but actually takes it somewhere with artistic value, look up Bela Tarr.