Review of Dark Matter (2008) by Vmedia Berkeley Ca. S — 28 Mar 2008

Going in, I knew nothing about this film and unfairly, when I heard Meryl Streep was in this movie, I assumed it would be a bloated dramatic waste of a few hours. I was, however, wrong. The film started out as this quasi-comedy and I enoyed all of the quirks. Meryl Streep was absolutely amazing in the film as Joanna and I thought she had this great odd chemistry with Liu Ye?s character. Unfortunately, the tone shifted and the film just went downhill, finishing with one of the most ridiculous endings, for the direction the tale had taken, I have ever seen.

Dark Matter,? directed by Chen Shi-Sheng, displays how treading in foreign territory, geographically and can be the biggest obstacle you may ever face.

Ok, maybe I went too far. I won't say it is the most ridiculous, but it was definitely up there with film school cliche type of endings that was just uncalled for with the rest of the film, the seeming need to add edginess for edginess's sake. Supposedly this is based on a true story but I feel that cinematically the transition can be rough. Granted I know nothing about the true story behind this, but I have tried to look it up (with no results). In my opinion, the ending was the biggest mistake the director could have made with this film.

This is a great film, to a point. Unfortunately the ending doesn't deliver, making the entire feature an exercise is wasted potential. But maybe that's the point. Its out limited in a few weeks.

Vmedia.