Review of Amour (2012) by Fredphoesh — 23 Jan 2013

This is a fantastic and powerful movie... amazing performances, unrelenting realism... and then comes the ending. I REALLY DISLIKED the way it ended/began and think it undermined the integrity of the film.

It was uncharacteristically sentimental. My guess is this was done to give the wider audience a slightly nicer-than-bleak tone? Why else would the director want us to believe that after he (presumably) kills himself (what on earth happens to his body???) the couple are re-united in the "afterlife".

Hmmm. Sweet, but irrelevant to the story and superstitious speculation at best. The missing body, or the fact it was not alluded to at the start of the movie when her body is found, seems like an unnecessary and contrived ploy "to make us wonder", debate the ending etc.

.. In this way it is contrived, perhaps a marketing department idea to create a "hook" for cinema goers to debate and therefore promote the movie. This missing body anomaly, and the fact that we are given the "feel good" token at the end seems entirely inconsistent with the rest of the movie - which is so beautifully real.

So the ending (beginning) is really poor and somewhat spoils what would have been a masterpiece.