Director: Erik Poppe
Genre: Drama
Runtime: 117
minutes
Year:
2013
Starring: Juliette Binoche,
Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Maria Doyle Kennedy, Laryn Canny, Larry Mullen Jr., Chloë
Annett, Eve Macklin
Description: Rebecca
(Juliette Binoche) is one of the world’s top war photographers. She must
weather a major emotional storm when her husband refuses to put up with her
dangerous life any longer.
I WATCHED THIS FILM FOR MY 2021 MOVIE CHALLENGE
WEEK 31: A WAR MOVIE
Review: With great passion and dedication Rebecca shows everyone the many untold
stories of the world. Because she believes that world is entitled to the truth.
Her surrender is accompanied by a businesslike coldness. Emotions need to be
turned off and parked untol Rebecca is on safe ground. Her family is somewhat
less than enamored with Rebecca’s far-reaching ambitions, especially when she
returns from a photo mission in Afghanistan after getting hurt pretty badly. The
call from those around her to quit the dangerous job becomes stronger and
stronger, but Rebecca struggles between her private life and her work.
Director Eric Poppe’s “A
Thousand Times Good Night”, with its overly
sentimental title, begins at once gruesome and powerful. Rebecca attends a
funeral, dressed in the local clothes but with a camera in her hand. This turns
out to be staged, because the deceased has yet to fall. However, there is no opportunity
to say goodbye, because the woman is a suicide bomber. By the other women of
her community, she is being groomed for her horrible task. Rebecca wants to
come along in the van that will eventually explode. After she gets out of the
van, the van explodes and she ends up in the hospital.
As soon as Rebecca is
reunited with her family in Ireland, the quality and impact of Poppe’s war
drama noticeable deteriorate. The contrast between Rebecca’s tow daughters is
striking. The youngest asks id mom hasn’t brought her presents, as if her
mother has been on vacation. The eldest better realizes all that her mother has
had to endure and even begins to show interest in her work for a school
project.
Still, the tension that
Rebecca’s work creates in the family have a fairly predictable character. The course
of the escalating conflicts is therefore easy to guess. This would not be a
problem at all if Pope’s screenplay had been able to accommodate this with
strong dialogue and intense interplay from the actors. But alas.
With actors like Juliette
Binoche and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau on board, things should be fine, one would
think. All their solid efforts notwithstanding, the characters are so
headstrong that it’s hard to steer them off course. There is little room for
nuance or real character development, no matter how well the performers do
their best. A pleasant change occurs when Rebecca travels to Africa with her
oldest daughter Steph. This initially creates a change of setting. But after
her return, it seems as if Rebecca just doesn’t want to learn from her
mistakes, even if this helps her family to gain dramatic momentum. The result
is a sudden change of direction at the very last moment. It is then too late for
this drama to sink in.
The movie didn’t turn out to
be what I expected. In this case, that’s a bad thing.
Rating: 2,5
/ 5
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