In Secret is continuing to follow the trend of most films that have come out thus far in 2014 where I walk out of the theater not caring one way or another what I have just seen. This is a good example of a dull period piece that knows how not to appear as if it is a dull period piece. It dresses its characters up in nice looking costumes and creates an atmosphere that harkens back to the days of cinema in which someone like Humphrey Bogart would fall in love with someone like Lauren Bacall. However, try as it might to actually become one of those classic films...In Secret ultimately can't inch past its bland script, terrible direction and odd miscasting even with talented actors at its helm. Oscar Isaac, Elizabeth Olsen, Tom Felton and Jessica Lange are all actors I have admired for quite some time and will no doubt continue to prove themselves in better films. Here, however, they seem too molded into one person to make us root for either side. The audience is expected to decide whether they are rooting for Oscar Isaac and Elizabeth Olsen to stay together or whether they want Jessica Lange and Tom Felton to catch this adulterer and her lover in the act. However, both sides are pretty similar to each other in the way they conduct things and in how truly reprehensible they are. The film should shine in showing these two different sides to a coin that the audience ultimately has to flip but that's where the film manages to bore the most.
The film follows Therese (Olsen) whose adoptive mother (Lange) forces her into an unhappy marriage with straight laced Camille (Felton.) When Camille brings home seemingly innocent Laurent (Isaac)..Laurent and Therese start an affair that may or may not end up badly. All the while....Camille seems oblivious to the whole thing as his character is portrayed as often being.
One of the reasons this film falls flat on its face despite its best efforts is that Camille being completely oblivious to the affair is ultimately too easy of a plot point to pursue. If he had been suspicious and started subtly digging into their day to day lives, the suspense of the film would have been considerably more present. As it is, the film feels too much like a game of dress up and double cross to work. Even when Therese gives Camille obvious hints that she's having an affair (she has to go back to the shop they own every day during her lunch break, she tells him she hates him, ETC)...he still seems clueless to his surroundings and that feels like too much of a cop out to work.
In Secret, written and directed by Charlie Stratton, a former actor with whom this is his first feature length film is pretty despicable but it's hard to pinpoint whose fault it is. Stratton obviously has no good material to work with here and just got unlucky while all the actors try really hard but are just too miscast to fit the film. I think I'll just blame the film itself for being yet another boring period piece.
(1 out of 5 Stars, The film is rated R for sexual content and brief violent images)
No comments:
Post a Comment