What is the plot of the film? Lucy is picked up by car by Jake, her boyfriend of a few weeks. There is a heavy snowfall, but he will take her to the outskirts of town, to his parents' house, where he grew up. She is thinking about ending the relationship, but finds a way and a moment to tell him. Upon arriving at Jake's family home, absurd situations and unhinged parental behavior suggest that something strange is happening. At the same time, the sad daily life of an elderly man who works as a cleaner in a school is shown.

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I love Charlie Kaufman as a screenwriter. The films he has written, but which were directed by other filmmakers, have been excellent: I Want to be Jhon Malkovich, Eternal Shunshine of the Spotless Mind and the adaptation of The Orchid Thief, have been wonderful. But when Kaufman is directing his scripts, I have trouble with the final results.

Although the script is not original, it is actually an adaptation of the novel by Canadian writer Ian Reid, who also participated in the development of the script. I have not read the book, but I am sure that in that format, the story should be easier to digest, plus there could be a surprise factor.

The film critics, most of them praising the film, I wonder if they do it sincerely, or is it just for financial reasons, many are paid to speak well of certain films and others only add to the fashion of what others comment, to avoid being pointed out.

The film is not so masterful, as many film critics assure, and it is not that it is totally bad. No. The message that the scriptwriter and director wants to convey, his proposal about loneliness and how human beings take refuge in their own fantasies to escape from it, I liked it and the subject is interesting. The problem is the form that he has given the film, with a couple of unbearable sequences, the lack of element of surprise and a final part that is left over, it was not necessary to lengthen it so much.

I don't know if it's because I'm getting old, or because the night I saw it, it was out of place. But the two sequences inside the vehicle, the first when they go to Jake's parents' house and the second when they return, have made me bored and sleepy. Those long sequences, in which the two characters are in the car talking non-stop, rambling about life, movies, books, reciting poems and spouting philosophical phrases, have really bothered me.

Another problem was the lack of surprise or twist in the script, because everything is revealed from the beginning. When we see the scenes in Jake's house, besides the inserted scenes of the old man working as a cleaner in a school, we already know what the whole movie is about. The surprise factor disappears, when the end comes, I wonder if it took that long to tell that story, besides the title of the film suggests what the end will be.

Unfortunately, when I saw the trailer a month ago, I was very eager to see it. If it had been directed by another filmmaker, the result would have been different. Perhaps if I had seen this film 20 years ago, I would have been as excited as some film critics.

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Jesse Plemons plays Jake, who takes his girlfriend of a few weeks to meet his parents. The character has been demanding for the actor, the register changes are varied, the amount of dialogue is high. I must applaud the work of this actor and the entire cast. Many people know Plemons for his character in the series Breaking Bad and Friday Night Lights.

Irish actress Jessie Buckley plays Jake's girlfriend Lucy, a character we've heard about for much of the film, looking for a way to end the relationship with Jake. A few weeks before the end, she is on her way to meet the parents, which is very rushed. The actress may not be known to many people, but those of us who saw the Chernobyl miniseries recognized her immediately. She played the wife of a firefighter who dies in the award-winning mini-series. She has appeared in other series, such as Taboo, and last year she was part of the cast of the film Judy. She began her career in a talent show and has been getting better and better jobs.

The cast is completed by actors Toni Collete and David Thewlis, who play Jake's mother and father. The sequences located in their home, with the first interactions between the four characters, are the best part of the film. Although we have not yet guessed the full plot, but then, when we realize for sure the reason for all that theater of the absurd within the home, the narration loses its charm.

Trailer

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POSTER

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