Lunchtime Poll: When was the last time a movie or show gave you whiplash?
Monday, February 22, 2021 at 1:00PM by Nathaniel R
- Tell me who you are!
- I'm the worst mistake you'll ever mistake.
Watching I Don't Care (reviewed by Christopher) was a whiplash experience. I was absolutely loving it until I suddenly wasn't. Thirty-six minutes into the movie Dean (Chris Messina) arrives into Marla's (Rosamund Pike) office, to start what is essentially act two of a three act. Two sharks begin speaking in human voices, their teeth gleaming imagining fleshy bites and blood in the water. It's a superb scene. A few minutes later another violent verbal duet with Dianne Wiest. All three actors are on absolute fire with impeccably judged reaction shots, expressive body language, and nastily imaginative line-readings. I Care A Lot felt, in that ten minute stretch, like it was taking off into the stratosphere. This is an "A" grade pitch-black comedy! The movie throws everything at you thereafter -- incidents, twists, more verbal duels, violence, and a score so aggressively present you want to remind it that Rosamund Pike has top billing-- but it's a case of either too much or rapidly dimishing returns. I was actively annoyed and disappointed for the entire third act.
When was the last time this happened to you? Love and hate in almost equal measure while watching a movie?
Reader Comments (38)
Just a few weeks ago I saw The Dig and was absolutely in love with it. Then Lily James showed up and completely overtook the movie with an unnecessary love plot complete with evil gay husband trope.
Recently, Wonder Woman 1984... I was loving the camp, devoid of all logic, till Steve came back and in THAT way. Then I was assaulted by one stupidity after another and ended considering it the worst DCEU film and one of the worst films of 2020. I hope it sweeps the razzies.
On The Dig... correctly made, but... I was bored beyond belief.
Hostiles.
I went in with sky high expectations, liked the early momentum, and then as soon as Jonathan Majors leaves, the film takes a nosedive. That was the point where I realized this was going in a direction I didn't like, and more importantly, one I didn't care about.
First Reformed.
Halfway through when you suddenly realize, “Oh shit THIS is what the movie is about.”
Midnight Sky. Everything was great (Clooney, the scary/mysterious little girl, the visuals) until the spaceship plot took place with all possible “space drama” cliché, twist included.
A lot of times.
Since I've seen it the first time more than 15 years ago still I can't say today if Donnie Darko is a good or a really bad movie.
The most recent is maybe Interstellar. After that fall in the library and "it's the power of love!" moment the movie switched immediately from an A to a C
Agreed on your take - those were the film's best scenes. They needed more Wiest.
Avengers: Infinity War was never great but I wanted to throw something at the screen when it ended. First Reformed too. Actually, the closest for me was probably Blade Runner 2049. Such high hopes for that one and it started strong enough... Then no.
I experienced good whiplash watching Rebecca (Hitchcock version) outside of Mrs. Danvers I was just laying in the couch half interested. Then the first surprise made me sit up and the second made me get up and sit in front of the tv like a kid watching cartoons. I was questioning everything I had seen up to that point.
Correct on The Dig. This is just bad screenwriting. You set up a great story (with a great protagonist in Ralph Fiennes) and then, what, you get distracted by Lily James and decide to follow her from there on out? I Care a Lot was similarly schizophrenic...But even more emotionally frustrating. It’s like the second half of the movie was made by someone who hadn’t seen the fist half. And yes, Nathaniel, that score! Perhaps not coincidentally, it revs up exactly when the movie starts losing its way (that awful sequence when Pike saves herself from drowning...wait, am I supposed to CARE about her now??). The score sounded like something out of a 1980s Cinemax movie.
Had to step in and defend The Dig. I understand the criticism, but I was completely into the opening up of the story. It felt right to me given that a big theme of the film was how this archaeological find, essentially a two-person discovery, rightfully belongs to the world. Yes, these subplots that start to pop up do feel like an intrusion on the Ralph Fiennes/Carey Mulligan main plot, but that's exactly what this dig was going to do all along. Maybe I would have minded this approach if the subplots weren't as interesting as the central story, but I found them just as captivating. In short, I loved this film but am all for varying opinions.
I was quite enjoying Bill Condon's THE GOOD LIAR until it spectacularly combusted into garbage in its final act.
Soul. Back and forth throughout the whole film. A very strange experience (and one I think I'm fairly alone on). Though my goodness is it gorgeous to look at and listen to.
Joker
The begining wants to point so much the tragic life of Arthur Fleck that feels forced in moments like when a woman in the bus says to him that stop bother her son for making him laugh, really? how many times that really happen in real life?
But anyway, I buy the "sad" story and I let myself go watching the In Crescendo catharsis into madness thanks to the phenomenal performance of Joaquin Phoenix who slowly turns into Joker.
After he comites a public crime is on a police car, but then another one crashes with him, the crowd takes him out of there and praise him because. .. I honestly don't understand why, but then the director remembers that the story is based on a character of a comic book and inserts a rushed referencial scene about the comic.
The story ends with a scene open to interpretation which two of them conclusions doesn't feel convincing.
I gotta say that I LOVED I CARE A LOT, it is toxic, nasty, it is uglyness through satiric lens and Rosamund Pike is just tremendous, I really think she's a serious contender for winning that GG and Weist should've been in the SA converstion.
For me THAT movie would be KNIVES OUT , really don't get all the praise, started fine (Toni Collette is amazing) then just derailed with a very stupid twist and Anna De Armas is hot as F*** but she sure needs to go back to acting school. Evans was having a lot of fun though.
The Little Prince (2016)
I was legit really loving the first two acts, and I was all ready to sing the praises of this film, until suddenly the main character got knocked out and woke up in an extended fantasy sequence that took up most of the third act and completely killed the narrative momentum for me.
Glee season 1. It had such a promising start, but it just went completely off the rails.
Basically anything by Ryan Murphy.
Agree 100% on I Care A Lot. Misplacing Wiest for the whole last third is such a blown opportunity.
Reminds me of Downsizing, the way they sucked me in with a premise and then gradually leaked out all the good will they built up.
Luke -- i haven't seen The Dig yet and now I'm both curious and not based on these responses. I didn't realize it was divisive but leaving Ralph Fiennes behind in a movie is almost never a good idea so i hear you.
antonio -- you were with midnight sky longr than me then. I was kinda bored from the first framee beyond that it's beautiful to look at.
Cash and Suzanne -- yep. Really good at setup. but not much else.
Tom M -- ooh i'm intrigued and want to hear more but i think i get it. I was into it intermitently myself. but i don really understand people preferring it to wolfwalkers (sigh)
andrew - i had forgotten all about that one!
I loved The Dig from beginning to end.
In The Mood For Love. So lush. And so romantic. And then the last ten minutes are so drab, emotionally and visually. I finally watched it this weekend.
Nathaniel-
This is your new, "I, TONYA" lol
Malcolm and Marie. Oy vey.
Midnight Sky for me. At some point after he found the "plucky" little girl, when I realized it was gonna be tiresome to watch her affect George by being plucky for 90 more minutes. And who knew what other cliches would be used? I got out when the going was good.
Julia Roberts' Ben is back
Kate Winslet's The dressmaker
i'm going to join Tom M and say SOUL, during which i veered from delight (some of the NYC sequences) to boredom (the belabored plot twists and the cat) to anger (anything taking place in the "afterlife" which felt so cliched and puerile). i know i'm in a minority on this one, but it's such a bummer to NOT like a pixar movie...and it was LOTS of whiplashing for me.
Good whiplash - Parasite. I was thoroughly entertained through the first half, thinking it would be a delightful crime caper...and then the former housekeeper showed up.
Bad whiplash - Interstellar, or maybe I'm just no longer charmed by Nolan's needlessly circuitous plotting.
Omg Downsizing, totally! Great premise, ballsy start and then... this is what the movie is going to focus on? Completely wasted opportunity.
I Care a Lot was fine, I wasn't annoyed by it because the movie wanted me to have fun, but the third act is really where the movie stretches any credibility.
Good whiplash - recently watched A Place in the Sun and went in blind. Liked the first half but thought it was just a romance. Was blown away out of nowhere when it started to take a noir turn and I was captivated till the end. I had a pretty identical experience when I watched The Talented Mr. Ripley a year ago.
Bad whiplash - I'll second what's been said about Soul. The first 15 minutes were wonderful, but everything in the afterlife felt underbaked and then mostly everything after felt pandering and immature. The ending was sweet but also felt like it went for a simpler "meh just live your life" instead of truly grappling with all the questions it raised.
Hmm....
Good whiplash: The Ornithologist
It took me a long time to get onto the film's wavelength, but I the last 40 minutes or so really worked for me and retroactively boosts the film. Honorable mention for PHOENIX, which is a good movie with an all timer of an ending
Bad whiplash: Nocturama.
I feel compelled to stick up for THE DIG, too, in that it's (for the most part) a quietly compelling movie - maybe a little too quiet - but both Carey and Ralph are really good in it.
However, I agree that the Lily James storyline falls flat and adds nothing to the movie. Doesn't rise to the level of whiplash or hatred, just kind of "meh."
Anyway, my "whiplash" movie is INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS. Every scene *not* involving the Basterds was so magnificently taut and gripping and then every time they show up the film just becomes...corny. Not that there's not a place for camp, but not with that story, please.
Peter Dinklage's character didn't live up to the hype he had. Plus once act 3 kicks in and both leads are still alive, it's non-logical. I guess it should have been Wiest trying to outsmart Pike. That's all.
Best whiplash recently: Ixcanul. It seems like a slice of life of indigenous people, if a little travelogue-y. Then the last ten minutes shows that the whole thing has been a build-up for something else, and becomes a gut punch that it took me quite a while after the movie was over to fully digest the last events.
I'm late to this so hopefully no one will see this, but I had bad whiplash with...Parasite. I was digging the class battle and the infiltration into the house but once it got more violent (and to my eyes) more ridiculous toward the end, it opted out of the great category into just the "bad ending" category. In my defense, everyone in my household and my two best friends separately all felt the same way. I guess we're just philistines.
I had the exact same experience Nathaniel! I was enjoying it until I really, really wasn't. The cracks were there from the beginning... You had to suspend a lot of disbelief very early on. But I was game until it became clear that the movie was rooting more for Rosamund Pike's character than Dianne Weist's. For shame!
RV -- right? If you dont want me to root for Dianne Wiest you probably need to not cast Dianne Wiest!
GET IN (for FURIE in its French title), which is so dumb of a retitling but which was a really good moody piece on masculinity which then turns into a gruesome home invasion movie for no reason other than apparently it was based on a true story (one I did not believe). It is on Netflix.
For me, it was Breaking the Waves (Lars von Trier).
During almost the complete movie, I HATED the film with every cells of my body.
But at the last seconds of it (VAGUE SPOILER: the bells),
the movie kind of clicked with me and I started to cry.
For like three hours.
I remember going out to eat after the film with my then-bf and simply couldn't stop crying.
He was confused about it since during the whole film, I was visibly annoyed, sighing, complaining to him about von Trier's manipulation toward the audience and his sadism toward Bess.
But that end, just wrecked me.
Never watched it again though.