If I could change one thing about you - I'd stop you trying to change me

Continuing my trip down Empire’s top 100 films of the century so far…

  • #79 Little Miss Sunshine
    100% indie quirkiness which I don't remember a lot about, but I remember I enjoyed it.

Unfortunately, that's all the films I have to talk about this time around so that means I had to move along and watch another *##^£!@&^£ Richard Linklater film.  In case you missed it last time around, I didn't particular enjoy Before Sunset - so you can imagine how much I was looking forward to yet another sequel featuring two people I didn't like, after another 9 years of their lives, to hear them discuss yet more things I didn't care about.  At length.  Hoorah for Before Midnight!

Well, the good news is that there are more other people involved this time around so some of the conversations are a little less self-centred and I also found the central characters a little less annoying and a little more grounded in reality.  So the film managed to hold my attention better, but that wouldn't have been hard.  

In fact, don't tell anyone but there were parts of this film I actually liked - what is the world coming to?!?  It felt better acted to me, possibly because they were given more opportunities to act rather than just talk - the fight scene worked pretty well (although it still felt a bit wordy to me).  I also particularly admired the use of long takes - the 13 minute take in the car is very impressive and feels very natural.  Which is odd, because Before Sunset did exactly the same thing and I never really noticed.

I still don't like either of the main characters (they are SUCH hard work!) - which considering they are 90% of the film is a bit of a problem.  However, I did like the end of the film - I thought it worked well after the fight scene.  The scenery is also beautiful - the last two films didn't exactly suffer from awful locations, but the bits of Greece that this is filmed in look absolutely gorgeous with a beautiful light to them.  

You may not have noticed but I've managed to write a lot more about this film than the last one, so that's definitely progress - I actually think I preferred this film to either of the preceding films or Boyhood.  But don't think for a minute I'll be watching it again...




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