Moustroll Good movie but grossly overrated

Arianna Moses Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

Marva It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Ginger Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

ritera1 There is a very fine and very long scene in the midst of all this that warrants a large portion of the points I have given this between the lead and the Dean of the college he attends. Although it had a good amount of room to be even better, it was a stellar achievement. That and the tragic ending of the hero.But much of it was quite odd.Very long intro of sorts to the college kid Marcus played by Logan Lerman. Several redundant scenes where we are repeatedly shown the same thing. Problems with the parents, which I found to be irrelevant to the story as a whole. The colorful elements of the room mates that went nowhere.But this was the love story between Lerman and Sarah Gadon. Not only did the first date not take place until 40 minutes in, we have no real idea of her until the date, other than she is strikingly pretty. On top of that the character apparently asked for the date off-camera.The first date was intriguing but vague at the same time. She's a bit odd, sure. But then very quickly to the blow job. Now I know it took place in 1951 and there was an element of trying to make him overwhelmed by the actions. But he wasn't until several days after the fact. All in all, I did not buy his apathy, even in that time frame. And she was supposedly mentally unstable, which was never really evident to me. Her scene of being very attracted to him rang false and his continual apathy was false. He was established as inexperienced and would have easily fallen under her spell. But then the whole relationship, although both charming people, was based around quite a lot of hand jobs. Yes, even though the character's mental history was presented, I did not get that from the portrayal, which is the fault of the director. Thus, I was open to a volatile relationship based on passion but was given an odd fixation on hand jobs between two reasonable people. Subsequently they could have cut out the difficulties the mother was having with the kid's father. It had zero relevance to anything, was described completely in dialogue when it should have been shown and took away from the love story. I just kept thinking that the mother should give hand jobs to the father.The device to get our hero kicked out of college and sent to Korea was very false. This kid had established a relationship with the Dean, whose sermons he was required to attend on a weekly basis in order to graduate. But they insisted on having him hire another student to sit in for him (as I knew that would lead to the inevitable). There was a sad poetry to the final outcome but too little, too late.

morebeautifulquitters After seeing this movie I am astounded that I myself survived at all, however marginally, after finishing my college education. Probably I shouldn't have. This film taught me way more about myself, and the diabolical twists and turns of a self-created life...than about what I was supposed to understand about what kids think about the wars raging all around them, about why Roth picked the material he wrote about, or about why some themes in life get recognized and why some don't. It's still an OK film and of course I will be reading the novel next. I assume there will be far more fine-tuned nuance there, and I also suspect I will personally feel maybe more invisible as well. Still plan to publish this reader- review and still plan to writhe through many more twists and turns in my own astoundingly improbable and invisible life. And while I'm doing that I'll probably read "A Separate Peace" one more time and then maybe get smug about how the movie for that book likewise failed to hold up. Or maybe I'm just obsessed on who can "pass that inspection" and who can't.

pniemeyer-47222 I've never read any Philip Roth, but if this film is any indicator, his work may be difficult to translate to the screen. The drama in this film is very introverted. It deals with a Jewish teenager (Logan Lerman) from New Jersey who attends a liberal arts college in Ohio, becomes infatuated with a fellow student (Sarah Gadon), and finds himself beset by the various social pressures that might affect someone in his position. Some scenes work very well (an argument between Lerman and his dean, played by playwright Tracy Letts, is proof that a verbal argument can be every bit as tense as a shootout), but on the whole, the film has a staid, overly formal quality to it.Some of that is the dialogue. I'm guessing much of it is taken intact from the novel, because it sounds too "written" when said aloud. I understand that these characters are smart, well-spoken people, but even so, there are some scenes where it feels as if we are listening to the screenwriter rather than the characters. The direction, too, has a very restrained quality, as first-time writer-director James Schamus shoots some of the dialogue in static medium shots that few contemporary directors would use. One one hand, I admire him for not falling prey to the quick-cutting style that so many modern films employ. At the same time, this film feels a little cold.The actors, for their part, do well. Logan Lerman, who was excellent in "Noah", proves yet again that he is capable of conveying just as much through facial expressions and reaction shots as through speech. Some of the supporting actors don't fare as well. Perhaps that could be the writing.I can't really give this film a definitive thumbs up or thumbs down. If you are a fan of Roth's or find the idea of Jewish-born sexually active atheist railing against a society that teaches him that he should repress his true feelings, then check this film out. It's sad, contemplative, and, in its own understated way, beautiful.

djwalls_32 Honestly, i hardly write reviews, and i do watch a lot of movies because i have a lot of time in the winter. You know when you don't know what to watch because neither the title or the synopsis etc.. doesn't really attract you too much and in the end you pick one and thing OK lets give this one a chance? Soooo happy i picked this one yesterday night and watched it. This is a really clever and entertaining movie, fantastic dialogues, I'm Spanish and watched this in English with subtitles and was amazed at some of the conversations, its a sweet movie, realistic, romantic, entertaining.... trust me, watch it, you will not be disappointed.