Film Review: Chronic

Tags

cannes, character study, chronic, coen, coen brothers, drama, franco, mexico, no country for old men, nurse, roth, tim roth

Director: Michel Franco

Written by: Michel Franco

Starring: Tim Roth, Sarah Sutherland

Released: Cannes 2015   Country: Mexico  Runtime: 1h33m   Rated: NR

 

The 2015 Best Screenplay winner at Cannes was a difficult film to sit through with an atrocious ending that left me shaking my head. Clearly, the Cannes selection committee and myself have differing views on this film. I found the story to be very jumpy and confusing, leaving a lot for the viewer to figure out for themselves, and not in a good way. Characters were not introduced and you must try and figure out who they are yourself. The scenes did not flow well together and gave the film a choppy, poorly edited, and cheap feel.

The cheap feeling extended into the technical aspects of the film as well. The cinematography was bland with no engaging or interesting elements. The sound quality of the film was of an amateur level, with background noise throughout most of the film that should have been edited out. There was also a lack of musical score in this film. Music is an important part of a film; it draws in the audience and helps portray the intended emotions of the film. To create a good film without music that can still hold the attention of the audience is a difficult thing to do. The Coen Brothers have famously done it very well in their Oscar winning film No Country for Old Men. Chronic does not do it well and just reinforces the fact that this film did not have an adequate budget.

Even though this film was sub-par, Tim Roth (Pulp Fiction, The Hateful Eight) gives an outstanding performance as a male home nurse who takes care of terminally ill patients. As he goes from patient to patient, Roth shows how much the character, David, cares about what he is doing and cares for the people he is tasked with watching over. Ultimately, Roth falls victim to the poorly written screenplay. The other actors in this film also do a good job for the quality of the script.

Overall, this was not an impressive film and I would not recommend it to anyone looking for a good movie. Overall grade:

 

Warning: Red Band Trailer