Review of Demolition (2016) by Andrew M — 09 Jan 2017

This movie is kind of all over the place. I think it's trying to tell a story of a guy dealing with the loss of his wife, whom he wasn't entirely sure he really loved. However, since we only spend a very brief amount of time with her before she's killed in an accident, and most of the relationship we do get is in VERY brief flashbacks and a small amount of dialog, we don't really get a connection to her.

It wants to use the demolition thing as a metaphor for taking himself apart before putting himself together, but since we as the audience don't know what his "together" is supposed to be it's hard to connect.

It's certainly has great performances from all the cast -- Gyllenhaal, Watts, Cooper, and Dooling are all clearly performing well. The problem I'm having is I'm not sure what the story is it's trying to tell.

Which might have been fine on it's own; there's no reason a movie can't just have interesting quirky characters. EXCEPT that right in the last act a three very cliche plot points happen which bring the entire endeavour crashing down.

Honestly, I was going to be more favourable on the film, but when those points happen in quick succession, and right out of nowhere, it kind of lost my sympathy. Still, even with those I don't dislike this film at all.

I just don't like it either. I guess that puts it on the upper-edge of "meh" territory. 5.5 / 10.