Strange movie, and a bit of a mess. Michelle Williams plays a woman whose husband and young son are killed in a terrorist bombing at at football stadium, at the exact moment she is having sex with Jasper, a reporter played by Ewan McGregor. Oh, and her husband was in the bomb squad, and his boss, played by Matthew Macfayden, tries to start a relationship with her after the bombing.
There's some good stuff in it, including the devastation that Williams gets across, the balloons that are sent up above London as a memorial are a striking (if not believable) image, and there is some cynical stuff about about the police being willing to sacrifice for the larger good and reference to the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes at Stockwell, but nothing really ties together. Macfayden and McGregor get one scene together, which is a waste as they play off each other well. Macfayden and Williams, on the other hand, have zero chemistry together. The movie is punctuated by a narration from Williams of letters she has written to Osama Bin Laden (seriously) as advised by her doctors, which for me stopped the movie dead in it's tracks each time.
There is a conspiracy angel to it, which could potentially have been interesting- do you sacrifice 50 people to save hundreds or thousands- but it is never addressed in any depth, frustratingly, and is barley even wrapped up.
The ending includes one of these letters (which says that oh, Osama, if only you could see my baby you'd stop the killing) being read over Williams giving birth to a new child- to be honest, it works better as a statement about the need to create a future to get over the past than it does in saying anything about terrorism, and even then the lesson feels kind of trite.
It's shot well, and has some interesting ideas, but it feels desperately in need of both fleshing out, and deciding what it really wants to say. Frustrating movie.
There's some good stuff in it, including the devastation that Williams gets across, the balloons that are sent up above London as a memorial are a striking (if not believable) image, and there is some cynical stuff about about the police being willing to sacrifice for the larger good and reference to the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes at Stockwell, but nothing really ties together. Macfayden and McGregor get one scene together, which is a waste as they play off each other well. Macfayden and Williams, on the other hand, have zero chemistry together. The movie is punctuated by a narration from Williams of letters she has written to Osama Bin Laden (seriously) as advised by her doctors, which for me stopped the movie dead in it's tracks each time.
There is a conspiracy angel to it, which could potentially have been interesting- do you sacrifice 50 people to save hundreds or thousands- but it is never addressed in any depth, frustratingly, and is barley even wrapped up.
The ending includes one of these letters (which says that oh, Osama, if only you could see my baby you'd stop the killing) being read over Williams giving birth to a new child- to be honest, it works better as a statement about the need to create a future to get over the past than it does in saying anything about terrorism, and even then the lesson feels kind of trite.
It's shot well, and has some interesting ideas, but it feels desperately in need of both fleshing out, and deciding what it really wants to say. Frustrating movie.
