Review of Freedomland (2006) by Anthonyp. — 06 Mar 2006

This unusual and evocative movie seems to have gotten under peoples skin. It is complex and ambitious in dealing with an extraordinarily painfull and real human issue. I think it angers or "bores" some critics because they don't want to deal with this pain.

It goes for the gut such that that guardian of the soul, the intellect, can't process it readily. This movie is too much for them, it turns their empathy off. It's jaring and at the same time numbing in a way that occurs with really frightening, weighty experiences in real life , and some critics seem to be really angry about being thus confronted.

Perhaps these people would rather be entertained. I too suffered some with this movie, but I felt like I was engaged with a quality of experience that authentically rendered a very real human condition I have not encoutered in film before.

Crash, with its tough realism, seemed by comparison, an array of cunning vignettes woven together into a sampler: sharp and right on, but lacking the depth of Freedomland. Julianne Moore rendered this horribly difficult, troubling and troubled character palpably real.

Only Meryl Streep could approach such complex psychology. I was deeply moved. I am amazed that so many professionals were so repulsed, perhaps, as they would be with such a person in real life,.Have these critics simply averted their minds, denying any interest in what makes such persons tick? So for them all this is simply beneath contempt? That is expedient and sad.