Review of Life in a Fishbowl (2014) by Jan V — 14 Jul 2016

In short: Several parallel plot lines coming together but the mixture disappoints. Characters not interesting enough to warrant the two hours running time. Not boring, just useless and unrewarding.

Saw this at Noordelijk film festival 2015 in Leeuwarden (NL). Long winded way of storytelling, without enough substance and devoid of interesting protagonists, taking more than two hours running time. Starting as independent parallel plot lines, we see gradually more and more of the main character's lives intertwined, but it takes time to get hold of the big picture. Alas, it is all interesting enough to make an effort to piece it together.

The superficial viewer should look past the embedded morale that men always get away with their wrongdoings and that women always suffer. There is one instance (only one!) where we see hard work and honesty rewarded (the fresh banker) while his colleague (always talking about team playing) changes his report (luckily, the boss found out). Nearly at the same time he threatens the school teacher not to reveal anything about their encounter in "Florida", he also tells his wife that nothing happened and that she has to trust him. So his morale is dubious at least, though it may be due to panic. The other instance of rewarding good behavior is when the writer/poet who accidentally winds up as a rich man, shares some of his wealth with the part time call girl, but we have to overlook that his way of babysitting is irresponsible because of his drinking habits.

All in all, no saints and no angels in this movie, only real people with all kinds of faults combined with good features. Yet, none of these are unusual or worth devoting a movie about it, so I get stuck with a feeling of disappointment after sitting out more than two hours. It was not boring, just useless and unrewarding. Technically nothing wrong, well shot, and casting/acting was believable. Apparently I'm at fault, as nearly 1000 IMDB users awarded a 7.5 score on average.