What if you had the chance to restore something in that life that had been unfairly taken away at a young age?
What if the restoration of that ability led to fallout elsewhere in your life, particularly your marriage?
What if a movie promised something entertaining and instead stole your time?
Marc Forster's latest film, "All I See Is You," explores these questions with meandering and rather unpleasant results. Imagine an empty bottle floating down a lake endlessly, and that's this movie.
Gina (played by Blake Lively) is a gorgeous and young blind woman who is suddenly granted sight in her right eye by her doctor (played by Danny Huston) due to a cutting edge procedure. Her husband, James (played by Jason Clarke), is initially supportive of her new ability and life, but becomes skeptical when Gina's behavior begins to change, and the bloom of her freedom leads to discoveries.
As her sight gives way to certain paranoia and trepidation in their home in Bangkok, Thailand, Gina and Clarke are stricken with the idea of change and control. What if the person closest to you only preferred you a certain way? James' problem with Gina runs deeper than pure sight, as Forster's movie messes up a bed that is made up of jealousy and betrayal.
The problem is you don't care much about Gina or James, so their future prospects become more dim as Forster's two hour film climbs towards its climax and resolution. Clarke and Lively don't build an ounce of chemistry, so the audience is grasping at straws in the end.
At first, you will sympathize with Lively's Gina, who is encountering a brand new world full of color and opportunity. Then, you'll wonder about James' position for a scene or two. The two try to put suture after suture on their union, but it doesn't work.
"All I Can See Is You" can't decide what it wants to be, melodramatic obsessive drama or slow moving thriller, and that lack of focus cripples your investment in the characters. The trailer and plot description make it out to be some mad moving thriller, but it's painfully slow. It's half drama with a squeeze of thrills that all fall flat to the screenplay's (written by Forster and Sean Conway) lack of direction and identity.
Forster could have turned James into something sinister or presented something fresh, but instead he just made an unlikable guy more invisible. A major plot twist is seen from a mile away 45 minutes before the rest of the film catches up, and the end of the film just stops abruptly without resolution.
The acting isn't bad, but doesn't contain much flavor to elevate the material. Lively is gorgeous and willing to dig in, but she's working on hollowed ground here-and she doesn't have the chops to hold this film up. Clarke is very talented, but he's stuck playing a well-known stereotype that moviegoers will frown at. The supporting cast contains a bunch of stray faces that seem recognizable from more interesting movies.
The pacing resembles a snail sprinting, which only pushes the viewer further away, while the imagery and cinematography belongs in a traveler's guide. The music is hopeful, but doesn't push the story much.
When I left this film, I told the Allied rep waiting for feedback, "what was that?!"
If I were you, I'd skip "All I See Is You" altogether, because all I saw was nothing.
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