Silver Linings Playbook

Oh, good God.  An hour and a half spent with people who yell at one another as a form of communication.  If I wanted that, I’d go home for Christmas.

The Hunter

In The Hunter, Willem Dafoe plays a world-class game hunter who has accepted a contract to kill the world’s last surviving Tasmanian tiger.  He’s a quiet man in a quiet setting.  He walks the Tasmanian wilderness, sets traps, and tries to pick up the trail of a lonely, elusive creature.  Things get complicated because this is, after all, narrative film.  However, one gets the sense that the plot is secondary.  The film recalls the pacing and tone of Peter Weir’s Picnic at Hanging Rock, and it is a film very much more about the pacing than the destination.

The pacing is .. deliberate.  We don't get to know Dafoe's hunter with an intro and a quip.  Rather, we get know him as he (re?)discovers an aspect of himself slowly, carefully.  There are few actors who can pull this off, and Dafoe is one of them.  However, The Hunter moves so slowly, so carefully, that I found it difficult to remain engaged.  The Hunter is a film for someone ready to meditate.  I, however, saw it on a computer in an airport lounge while keeping an eye on the "Delayed Departures" board.  I may be the target audience for this film, but I was not the target headspace.

So, see The Hunter if you love Dafoe.  See it if you love Australia.  But skip it if you have something else on your mind.  The Hunter is for meditation, not distraction.