December 1st, 2009

Sarcastigate at the Movies: Ballast

This one has me conflicted.  It’s beautiful.  It’s stark.  It’s well acted by a cast of Alabama locals that basically improvised the script.  The hand-held cameras do an unbelievable job of masking how much work must have gone into every shot.  It’s sad.  It’s so sad that it hits me RIGHT THERE.

Add up all of those and you’ll get a movie that I’ll love.  A movie that I’ll rave about and tell you to watch.  A movie I’ll sit through again just because the Blu-Ray copy looks so DAMN good for an indie film.

And then I’ll tell you that I won’t recommend this movie to you.  That I found myself just a little too bored for too much of this film.  Curious of where it was going but finding myself uncaring about where it could have ended up.  I didn’t predict any endings.  I didn’t call out any characters as “changed” or “fixed” or “better.”  I just watched it.  And it ended.  And that was that.  I went about my day much like the characters must have.  And therein lies the problem: it was just too much like real life.  Sure, Ebert loved it.  Sure, critics raved about it.  Sure, it wasn’t at all about MY life…  but it was about real life and the way we all spend so much time finding ways to struggle.  And, in the end, it was so beautiful, and so sad, and so “life-like” that I just wanted to get back to life.  Take from that what you will.

Ballast, 2009

5/10 (but as close to a perfect 5/10 as you will ever find.)