Female Film Critics 24/375
The formulaic script by Oren Uziel, Dana Fox and co-directors Adam and Aaron Nee – from Seth Gordon’s story – is remarkably reminiscent of Romancing the Stone with Kathleen Turner and Michael Douglas, Harrison Ford’s Raiders of the Lost Ark, even the first Mummy movie with Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz.
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Loretta’s well manicured, but shaky hand slowly inched closer to Alan’s creamy white bare buttocks. Yes, his perfectly shaped derrière was covered in leeches engorged with blood from his muscular body, but she secretly was attracted to him and knew she must overcome her fear and free him from his throbbing pain if their relationship was to survive.” This is The Lost City.
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Sometimes Oscar-winners like Sandra Bullock (“The Blind Side”) make massive miscalculations like “The Unforgivable. Making her English-language debut, German director Nora Fingscheidt works from an adaptation to try to tell this bleak ‘second chances’ redemption tale. But the pacing is turgid, lacking urgency, and Sandra Bullock never manages to make grimly determined Ruth even vaguely likable. The concluding plot twist turns out to be too little too late.
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Based on the virtually same-named 2009 British miniseries, director Nora Fingscheidt’s somber drama The Unforgivable stars Sandra Bullock as Ruth Slater, a woman released from prison after serving a 20-year sentence for murder. As she tries to find the younger sister she had to leave behind so long ago, Ruth discovers that life on the outside is full of pain and pitfalls, as well as occasional moments of empathy and hope.
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Most movie mavens this awards season have likely heard of The Power of the Dog. However, they probably haven’t heard much buzz about a B-movie crime thriller out there, Unforgivable, that is several clichés away from being grindhouse fare. But a better title might be The Power of the Sandra Bullock, since the Oscar-winning actress, who is one of the producers, pretty much carries this project on her admirably sturdy shoulders. The film, based on a three-part British miniseries and directed by Nora Fingscheidt, has its ups and downs – including a plot line that has a few too many puzzle pieces as it unfolds in a cold and rainy Seattle locale. But if you hang in there, the performance of its female star attraction will reward you.
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Atmospheric and tense, Susanne Bier’s “Bird Box” is both a post-apocalyptic horror/thriller story and a character study. Anchored by Sandra Bullock’s star performance, the film explores what happens after the majority of the world’s population is struck down by an affliction that makes them see visions so nightmarish that they’re driven to kill themselves as quickly as possible.
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Susanne Bier is a filmmaker with an innate ability to mine the painful truths of the human experience in a way that is both deeply intimate and profoundly universal. And so it is with Bird Box, her first foray into genre filmmaking, that distills the daunting responsibility of parenthood into one woman’s seeming impossible journey of survival in a world overrun by unseeable monsters.
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When filmmakers start casting women in roles originally written for men, it gives real hope that Hollywood might just be
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