Review of Third Person (2014) by Greek-God — 08 Jan 2018

The "interconnected stories" trick worked well for director and screenwriter Paul Haggis when he won two Oscars for Crash (2004). I'm in the minority who enjoyed that film, and Haggis tried to do something similar in Third Person, but this time, I found the movie boring and pretentious, despite the solid performances.

Third Person is told with a frustrating slowness, gradually losing the energy of the three stories. Nevertheless, as I previously said, I liked the performances. Liam Neeson brings a credible and detailed work, while Olivia Wilde equally displays talent and beauty, solidly transmitting her character's extreme changes of attitude.

Mila Kunis also left me a very good impression, and James Franco managed to bring a good performance, despite having the worst written character of the film. And Moran Atias left me pleasantly surprised with her performance.

The only film I had seen her in had been La Terza Madre (that piece of junk directed by the once great Dario Argento), in which I had found her performance horrible; however, her work in Third Person is very good, displaying a much better histrionic shape.

Going back to the negative elements from Third Person, despite the three stories being quite tragic and dramatic, they feel curiously cold and impersonal. They never inspire enough passion in order for us to get interested in them.

I think the main reason Third Person failed is due to the "Director/Screenwriter/Producer" syndrome, aggravated by a case of "And I Have Won Two Oscars, So Nobody Tells Me What to Do", something which tends to cloud the vision from many filmmakers, making them blind to their own vision (Irony!).

Despite the good performances, the excessive self-indulgence, confusion of topics and boring rhythm from Third Person avoided me from enjoying it, and I can't recommend it.