Ed's Review Dot Com

The Weinstein Company, Screen Australia, See-Saw Films,

Dev Patel, Rooney Mara, Nicole Kidman, David Wenham, Pallavi Sharda, Tannishtha Chatterjee, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Eamon Farren, Priyanka Bose, Benjamin Rigby, Menik Gooneratne, Anna Samson, Arka Das, Deepti Naval

The year was 1986. A 5 year old boy, Saroo (Sunny Pawar, Dev Patel) is off on an adventure with his big brother, but becomes lost and alone. He climbs aboard an empty train to sleep, but is unaware the train is decommissioned and is being driven to Calcutta, thousands of miles away. When he finally escapes the train, he is all alone in a a new city where he can’t speak the language and has nowhere to go. Saroo’s life greatly changes, but as he matures, he can’t help wondering who he was and where he came from and he feels the need to find out based on the little bit he can remember.

Another Hidden Gem of a film that I love to find and bring to you. This is a true story, based on the book “A Long Way Home” by the real Saroo Brierley. This movie will touch you. It is an Australian Independent film, and is probably one of the movies you have never heard of. I found it streaming on Netflix and with the insistence of my daughter, I decided to watch it. To say that it had an effect on me is an understatement. This is one of those movies that will stay with me forever. This is such an awesome story, and the time and effort put into getting the right people to play each of the roles really shows. IMDB claims that 4000 boys were looked at to play 5 year old Saroo. The one that they ended up with, Sunny Pawar, though not an actor at all, was perfect in the role and did an absolutely amazing job. The fact that this is a real story and actually happened, makes it all the more impactful and really touches your heart. The fact that Saroo isn’t alone, and that thousands of children go missing in India every every year makes it more touching. Everyone in this film gave their heart to it, and it shows. IF you don’t have a Netflix account, the price of it is well worth it just for this film. Seriously, this is a great movie. I’m sure that fact that Weinstein Company owns the film is a concern to many people, but this movie is far too valuable to let that bother you. This is a story that needs to be told. Make sure to stick with it to the end, because if you don’t read the text at end, you can easily spend the rest of your life wondering why this movie is titled “Lion”. It also has some great clips of the real people from the film and well of real footage of a really special meeting in India at the end. This is one of the best stories I’ve seen in a long time, and one that I highly recommend for everyone. It is an amazing journey.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

Screen Australia, Screen Queensland, Blacklab Entertainment,

Ethan Hawke, Noah Taylor, Sarah Snook, Freya Stafford, Cate Wolfe, Christopher Kirby, Madeleine West,

The Barkeep (Ethan Hawke) is actually a Temporal Agent (an undercover government group that uses time travel to go back and fix problems in time). He meets a young man named John (Sarah Snook) who tells him her story of how she was raised as a orphaned girl, but she was actually born with both sexes and a problem in her only pregnancy forced the doctors to choose on her behalf to turn her into a male. But the Barkeep is interested in recruiting her as a Temporal Agent and having John/Jane help him in fixing things so that he could capture and thwart the “Fizzle Bomber” who was causing havoc in the city. This complicated time travel journey is a complex film, based on the 1958 short story “All You Zombies” by Robert Heinlein, a well known science fiction piece that has taken decades to come to the screen.

First off, watch every minute of this film. It is very slow starting, and hard to pick up all the details you need to solve they mystery. The moment I finished it, I wanted to restart it, but I waiting until the next morning and watched it again. It’s an awesome, mind-blowing story. I am a sucker for time-travel stories, but this one really had me going. Many people miss the primary purpose of the story, but the title is Predestination. So the main focus is how no matter what we want to change, we end up on the path we’re supposed to. That doesn’t mean going back in time doesn’t change the future, but the world levels out in the end. The story is very complex, and the relationship of all the characters are important to understanding the story, but it’s a very cerebral and well constructed story. Ethan Hawke is really fantastic in this film, but Sarah Snook completely steals the show. Her performance is certainly Oscar worthy, and compared to Cate Blanchett playing Bob Dylan in “I’m Not There”, Sarah is 100 times better. This actress has impressed the heck out of me.

As teens, we spent many weekends and evening talking about the paradoxes and the possibilities of time travel. This story has a lot of paradoxes in it, and you can argue from now till eternity over the validity of the theories. But this movie is about Predestination, not about time travel paradox, and you’d need a time machine to have enough time to finish discussion about whether or not it’s even possible. Don’t waste you time with that, but enjoy this story for the wild and intriguing Sci-Fi treasure it is. There is certainly enough other topics in this movie to discuss. This is certainly one of my favorite films of the year and one that will make me think for a while! Now I can’t wait to read the original story!

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

Gaumont, Screen Australia, Ciné@,

Naomi Watts, Robin Wright, Xavier Samuel, James Frecheville, Ben Mendelsohn, Sophie Lowe, Jessica Tovey, Gary Sweet, Alyson Standen, Skye Sutherland, Sarah Henderson

Two friends, Lil (Naomi Watts) and Roz (Robin Wright) live beside with their young sons on the sea coast in Australia. They have been friends through their whole lives. The boys are also very good friends. One is single, the other married to a man who is distant and not present most of the time. He wants to move to the mainland but his wife rejects moving with him in lieu of staying with her friend which leads people to think they are a couple. But far from it, an affair starts between the two mothers and each others sons. This, of course, requires extreme secrecy, even between the two friends until one of the sons wants to get married, and things start falling apart sending shock waves through the entire community.

This is a rather useless film. There is drama and fighting, and lots of screaming, but there’s no real point to it. The movie doesn’t take a side on this kind of behavior, but rather just gives us the attitude of “it is what it is”. To say I was shocked by this film is not true, but at the same time, I was not disgusted either. Disappointed, perhaps, is a better term. These people are acting stupidly and hiding it makes things much worse. I just was not into this movie, and found it a little off-putting. I’m not sure why it was made, but it did not have anything really that could keep my interest. It was like watching the Jerry Springer Show. You know the people are acting badly for the cameras and it really can’t shock us anymore. So pass this one by. It’s not worth it.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog