Dallas Buyers Club movie review

With two Oscars the acting should be the best part of the movie, and it was. I wonder how long the first cut of the movie was – that should be a statistic listed with Technical Specifications. In this case I’m guessing more than four hours. Lotta lotta lotta stuff going on – fifty-five gallons in a five gallon bucket. My refrain ‘too much plot!’ rings often, but often rings true. Here there are not only subplots, but subtexts galore. I suppose you have to ‘hit the high notes’, but with so many to hit it’s tiring.

A movie critic, I think Charles Solomon, said “every feature film I saw last year felt like it was twenty minutes too long” and boy do I agree. There were attempts to compress time which worked, thanks to snappy editing. There were enough extended scenes to win two acting Oscars, so critics liked them and not plot or editing.

Jennifer Garner doesn’t get much credit for her good acting; her ‘serious’ scenes are mannered, but her sweet-cute-bittersweet scenes with Jared Leto are wonderful. Jared Leto gave a stunning performance – he wasn’t playing a character, he was the person. I don’t know what or how he did it, but it was something to watch.

~ by 4paul on 2014/03/16.