I felt that the director spent too much energy establishing the distance in time and location, that she didn't develop the characters enough to make you feel empathy for any of them.
Sure many of us have had that childhood crush that we wish could be revisited in later years, or at least some curiosity of what happened in the meantime. But it feels like those gaps in time weren't filled with anything. It's as if the characters had stopped for 12 years, then started again, then stopped, then started again, which would not be realistic.
I was also half expecting Nora to talk about 9/11 as they were on the boat, and how it affected her, as she would have been living in NYC at that time, but that wasn't even brought up. Not that it was crucial to the plot of the film, but it did shape a lot of people's lives who lived through it.
What really got under my skin, though, was the long pauses. I get it, you want to convey emotion through watching the characters pausing and looking at each other without saying anything. But after the 3rd or 4th time, it just felt really forced.
Ultimately, I didn't really feel any emotion for any of the characters, and what good is a drama if you aren't connecting with the people in it? Worth a look, but in the end, you don't really feel you learned anything at the end.
Sure many of us have had that childhood crush that we wish could be revisited in later years, or at least some curiosity of what happened in the meantime. But it feels like those gaps in time weren't filled with anything. It's as if the characters had stopped for 12 years, then started again, then stopped, then started again, which would not be realistic.
I was also half expecting Nora to talk about 9/11 as they were on the boat, and how it affected her, as she would have been living in NYC at that time, but that wasn't even brought up. Not that it was crucial to the plot of the film, but it did shape a lot of people's lives who lived through it.
What really got under my skin, though, was the long pauses. I get it, you want to convey emotion through watching the characters pausing and looking at each other without saying anything. But after the 3rd or 4th time, it just felt really forced.
Ultimately, I didn't really feel any emotion for any of the characters, and what good is a drama if you aren't connecting with the people in it? Worth a look, but in the end, you don't really feel you learned anything at the end.