A MISTAKE – Review by Betsy Pickle
Everyone makes mistakes – it’s part of being human.
Some mistakes have graver consequences than others: Choosing a scary movie to stream before bedtime could lead you to have nightmares. Taking a wrong turn could make you late to a birthday party. Miscalculating your bank balance might land you in a financial kerfuffle.
But what if you’re the captain of the Titanic? Or a judge? Or a surgeon? Your mistake could go down in history as a tale of hubris and disaster. Or ruin just one life. Or possibly end one.
How do you respond to your mistake? Do you make excuses? Do you find a scapegoat? Do you take responsibility? These reactions are at the heart of A Mistake.
Based on a novel by Carl Shuker, A Mistake is a universal story set in Auckland, New Zealand. Elizabeth Banks plays Elizabeth “Liz” Taylor, an unglamorous but supremely gifted surgeon who makes life-and-death decisions daily. Liz exudes strength and confidence, and she provides a calm presence for her team during her surgeries.
Liz is acclaimed for her skills, but she also irks the administration with her forthright opinions and impatience with bureaucracy. When something goes wrong in one of her surgeries and the patient later dies, Liz’s worldview is shaken and she finds her life spiraling out of control.
Written and directed by Christine Jeffs, A Mistake is a serious but predictable film that’s elevated by the convincing performance of Banks. It’s fascinating to watch a character with such high standards slowly lose her belief in herself as her integrity does battle with the realities of the modern world. Banks resists trying to make Liz likable, but she manages to make her sympathetic, for the most part.
The other characters, unfortunately, aren’t as well written (or as convincingly portrayed). Simon McBurney’s stereotypical bureaucrat Andrew is straight out of the 20th century even though he represents the technology-dependent business models of our times.
The most interesting supporting character might be Auckland itself. American viewers are mostly familiar with New Zealand thanks to its casting as the magnificent backdrop for the Lord of the Rings films. Here, it’s most definitely not exotic with its concrete-and-glass downtown and impersonal interiors.
Some suburban vistas and commuter waterways lend personality to the setting, but unfortunately they also serve as a reminder of the Seattle setting of TV’s long-running medical show Grey’s Anatomy. Those who favor the lively melodrama of fare such as Grey’s probably won’t have the patience for something as contemplative as A Mistake.
Even so, A Mistake is worth seeing – and experiencing. There aren’t enough films that focus on the intellectual fractures of our in-the-moment society. We love to navel-gaze, but we’re not very good at honest self-examination.
