Sunday, June 8, 2014

Charlie Countryman (Romania, 2013)




Nine Things about the Movie Charlie Countryman


1. The original title of the movie (and the title that appears onscreen) is “The Necessary Death of Charlie Countryman”.


2. For some reason, mainstream critics tore this movie apart, perhaps because it denies easy classification. I don’t know. Whatever the reason, it doesn’t deserve the hate that was heaped on it.

3. It’s kind of a violent, drug-fueled, romantic drama wrapped in magical realism.

4. Shia LaBeouf stars in it, and I think this may be his best performance ever. LaBoeuf plays Charlie, a depressed young man who has a tendency to talk to people even after they’re dead.

5. Charlie’s dead mother tells him to take a trip to Bucharest, where he meets a cello player with a dead father and a psychotic husband. Charlie falls in love with her, and he gets drawn into her problems.

6. The guy that played Ron Weasley in the Harry Potter movies, Rupert Grint, does a good job here playing an over-eager druggie. He’s definitely not at Hogwarts anymore.

7. The movie is bafflingly good at capturing that “damn-the-consequences-I’m-in-love” feeling that young people tend to fall into.

8. The soundtrack fits the movie perfectly. The original score meshes well with tracks from Moby and M83 to keep the slightly hallucinatory, dreamy atmosphere going through the whole film.

9. The ending wraps everything up a little too neatly, but this is an oddly beautiful film that needs to be better appreciated.





No comments:

Post a Comment