I enjoyed the movie. In the movie there is a boy who likes girl things (dress up, princesses). In 2020 well let's just say kids are just as mean on the playground as they were 35 years ago. It parallels something personally that I am experiencing with my son being made fun of because he likes TicToks so this movie kinda hit home. I recommend the movie for the story which was excellent. It also showed the kids being horrible to the main character including the use of the only F word, which I don't use, so I was shocked to hear it and didn't expect it to be used from Apple TV in a Justin Timberlake movie in 2021. Overall I think it is a movie about acceptance and in a cruel world, kindness matters which is a great message. However I must warn, the bullying scenes did affect me as a parent to a kid who got teased super recently and my own childhood of kids being cruel. In that aspect, this movie was a masterpiece because I don't think anyone who watches this will not have some emotional investment due to the shared history of being bullied for being assumed as different.
"Look, there's things in this world that you can be and things that you can't, OK? How many boys do you see on that show?" - Palmer
"None." - Sam
"What does that tell you?" - Palmer
"That I can be the first." - Sam
There's a unique category of film that works precisely because it doesn't. Its inability to actually reach what it's aiming for is a feature, not a bug.
Vox/Lux might be the best example of this I've ever seen.
This story of a school shooting survivor whose earnest performance of a song she writes goes viral and propels her to mega stardom is more than competent in terms of visuals and performance, but there's almost a sense that the writers weren't really sure how to take us from the beginning to the end. A terrorism subplot is introduced halfway through to little effect, and the final sequence drags on for far too long, but the messy and disjointed nature actually feels somewhat appropriate, given these words are also an excellent description of our heroine when we catch up with her as an adult.
It shouldn't work, but it does, and it only improves and becomes more interesting with subsequent viewings. At its heart, it's a story we've seen many times in more or less the same way, but something about the way Vox/Lux tells it makes it feel like hearing it for the first time.
Another disaster porn meets horror movie of sorts! And like most (all?), it's a perfect string of coincidences and a boring recipe that advances the 'plot' forward. Just the right amount of suits! They are all magically the right size, even for people that have never used them! Science and physics take a backseat! T.J. Miller, the bad writer's comic crutch, who literally has to say a 'funny' line every single time! Ending? Predictable, stupid, and a bad attempt to get philosophical (?) making it that much worse. Skip this trash.
Russell Crowe, Elizabeth Banks, Olivia Wilde, Aisha Hinds, Jason Beghe, Lennie James, and a cameo by Liam Neeson... and I missed this movie? Maybe bad previews originally? I'm glad this popped up on Netflix' recommendations; this as a well-done movie. Simple plot, but great casting, and fed you enough morsels to string you along to make you anticipate how it would end. This movie delivered all around with flawed but real characters at every turn and the willingness to leave some threads unpulled, where other movies might have wasted time on it.
