Review of The Congress (2013) by Dan B — 08 Aug 2014

Awful movie, good dial spinner. Robin Wright (the character) is fainty and plankish, essentially just dragged from scene to scene as various characters mansplain the world to her via monologue, and often via yelling.

These monologues begin with a bizarre obsession with celebrities as commodities and how that somehow destroys personhood, and gradually branches out into unfocused critiques of medication, cinema, and society in general, degenerating from mansplanation into incoherent raging mansplatter, all set to a trippy animated backdrop of birds, kites, rapidly-growing vegetation, gas-masked guerrillas, and centaurs.

So basically, if you've ever wondered what Kanye West's stress dreams are like, this film is for you. It is constantly selling unearned drama and tragedy that fails to make you feel for the characters.

It is bombastic, didactic, and deeply self-indulgent. I thoroughly enjoyed watching it, but the idea of watching it again sounds like torture.