Downtown Owl

Downtown Owl

I was expecting a lot more from this one. And frankly, I was pretty disappointed. I should have taken the relatively low grade IMDb viewers gave it. The movie had so much potential. Here are the main problems as I see it. The film really tried too hard to be offbeat. It ended up looking like it was directed by someone with ADD. It needed a lot more focus instead of trying to tell several, seemingly unrelated stories at the same time. The acting from Lily Rabe while excellent, wasn't enough to save the movie. She deserved better material. And Ed Harris? Wow! What an utter waste of his talent here. Maybe the director will have better luck on his next outing. --MovieJunkieMark.

In my opinion, this film exhibited a unique and well-conceived narrative. It authentically captured the mindset and societal norms of a bygone era. Notably, the absence of cell phones and the prevalence of pay phones in bars, as well as the prominence of social interactions in physical spaces rather than online, were accurately portrayed. The film effectively highlighted the distinct values and priorities of that time, such as the significance of outdoor activities and face-to-face encounters, in contrast to the contemporary reliance on technology and digital communication. These are all things that I feel like we take for granted now especially children in millennials.

Why Ed Harris its in this thing? He didn't deserve this after his extraordinary carrer, i feel so sad for him to be honest. The directorial debut of the American horror storyline girl is a very mediocre one and kinda sad, the movie is just a big mess and that's disappointing because she is a good actress and the cast it's very big and experimented, but the script and history its a mess i didn't understand anything and i am a pretty smart guy to be honest so that's weird, overall this is a mess and please dint lose your time trying to understand this thing please ok, just awful movie overall ok bay.

I enjoyed this film for the first 95% of it because it seemed like it stayed more-or-less close source material; and it was cool that Lily Rabe portrayed the same character whose part she also read in the audiobook. But then, the ending. The power of the book was in the ending. And the film departs from that, which completely undercuts the rest of the storyline. Additionally, some of the vital subplots are merely glazed over or simply ignored. The book itself is a balanced alternating three-part narrative from Horace, Mitch, and Julia, but the film version is Julia-centric. This film was good, but also a bit disappointing for anyone who read the book first.

It's 1983. New teacher Julia Rabia (Lily Rabe) arrives in the tiny town of Owl, North Dakota. She is befriended by talkative fellow teacher Naomi (Vanessa Hudgens) who brings her to the local bar. She falls for bison farmer Vance Druid (Henry Golding). She is befriended by longtime resident Horace Jones (Ed Harris). There is an inappropriate teacher-student relationship and a surprise snowstorm. I really like Lily Rabe. More and more, she reminds me of her mother. They have the same style and comedic tones. I like almost everybody here although a couple of them are trying too hard. It's quirky middle America. The story is too scattered. The main plot should be the underaged student affair. Julia should have more time with the quarterback and get more involved with that subplot. As for the snowstorm, it seems rather anti-climatic and a bit of a fake-out. I like this cast but the story needs work.

I don't know where to start. I read this book years ago, and it was okay. Not great, but not boring. Easy read, fast. Probably read it in a day. This movie feels like it tried to shove those hours of reading into five minutes. The pace was hurried. It didn't align with the book. I was put off immediately by a middle-aged teacher moving to the middle of nowhere to teach for a SINGLE SEMESTER while her husband worked on his doctorate? And what's going on with her husband? Why did we need to see their marriage fray in this? Oh wait, we didn't need the marriage at all - if the story would've stuck to the book! Julia in the book is 23, single, and a recent college grad trying to get her footing with her first full-time teaching job? That makes sense. Naomi enters the book a little older, wiser, and a bit more grizzled, ready to show Julia the ropes of life in this small hamlet. Single Julia trying to meet an equally single Vance - well, there we go. No crying/screaming divorce phone calls needed. Not a single one. Ted - what happened to Ted? Ted in the book isn't a major character, but he's the reasonable, level-headed guy who takes care of his friends in the book. He gets a whole single line in the movie. But Laidlaw, well, I don't even wanna go there. Laidlaw in the book is just a gross, dispicable man whose life didn't get upended by pregnancy like his poor student, Tina - who is long gone in the book. But here we are, focusing on this EXTREMLY problematic relationship, to which one character remarks, "Maybe it's love." STOP. The story, as a whole, got bungled. This would make a much better three-act play. In the book, none of the characters overlap, which makes it better. We just get little microscopes into these three different lives and the people around them. It's perfect. But in this movie, everyone overlaps. The kids try to get Julia in to stop Laidlaw -- what?! Horace drags Julia in to stare at his comatose wife (who doesn't exist in the book). What? And for goodness sake WHAT was that scream session on the football field about?! What is with the fish eye lenses for panning shots that went nowhere? Why did they keep breaking the fourth wall? If you want to narrate, just narrate the damn thing. The storm tips at the end felt comical for an ending that's supposed to be tragic. *takes a heavy breath, sighs* I just didn't like this movie. Not a lot, and not even a little. I think Ed Harris carried his character the best. Henry as Vance was good too, but we didn't get enough of him. I liked the Mitch + friend group the most but they got next to no time other than stalking Laidlaw. The soundtrack had some good jams, but didn't feel very 80s - which has such a vibe with music on its own, it could've really pulled us into this world a bit more. This book maybe never should've been a movie. Or at most, a play. But here we are.

I wanted like this film, I really did. But there is something to be said for, "just because you can, doesn't mean you should" here, all the way around. Age swapping Julia and Naomi in order to allow Lily Rabe to star and "showcase her acting" was not wise. Most of her scenes I found completely over the top, the breakdown on the football field was not a "career best", it was straight up embarrassing. Julia was in her 20s in the book, fresh out of college with no where else to go, and that setup works so much better than the concept of a 40-year-old woman moving across country to a tiny town for a single semester because her husband is working on his thesis?! So much of the story felt incomplete, and yet somehow managed to be so boring at the same time. 41 minutes in and I paused the film to see how much time was left and then groaned to discover there was a lot more to go. Too many characters were thrown in for inclusions sake because they were in the book, like Naomi's faux "boyfriend" Ted, who really had zero purpose except to tell her at the end that she's not a good listener. Justice for Ted, he deserved better. The high school kids were the best part of the movie, and they were all so underdeveloped. Why bother creating these secondary characters for little to no reason? I have so many questions about the directors' choices on what to add/subtract from the original plot. Why was the coach having a torrid affair with a student made such a central point and how is it realistic that the whole town just accepts that he does this repeatedly? It amounts to absolutely nothing. No resolution, no Laidlaw getting his. And Julia proclaiming, "but what if she really loves him?!" Yikes. All the criticisms I've read from professionals are spot on. The tone is all over the place, weird 4th wall breaks that do not work, cartoons and hot pink type thrown in, and no, the directors claiming they just "like weird" and the rest of us "don't get it", is not a valid reason. The entire blizzard scene, the climax of the film: dramatic music, weird monologuing and ultimately changing the original ending...was it supposed to be so bad it was silly?! I honestly could not tell. "I'm saving your life, man!" Cringe. These two should really just focus on their own acting careers rather than keep trying to force this 2fer to happen. It never goes well. As someone on letterboxd said, no one self-sabotages their career better than Lily Rabe and subsequently, Hamish Linklater's.

If you're going to have the storm of the century don't show characters walking in the snow afterwards when it doesn't even come up to the bottom of their boots. Just one example of the pointless stupidity of this movie. Another is a football team in the locker room with about five players. It goes on and on. Hardly anyone in the movie seems remotely real. And despite their efforts you would have a hard time caring about what happens to any of them. At the end of the movie when the newspaper shows that one of them dies, you will probably go, "Huh, who cares," and go directly to IMDB to give it a poor review.

I wanted like this film, I really did. But there is something to be said for, "just because you can, doesn't mean you should" here, all the way around. Age swapping Julia and Naomi in order to allow Lily Rabe to star and "showcase her acting" was not wise. Most of her scenes I found completely over the top, the breakdown on the football field was not a "career best", it was straight up embarrassing. Julia was in her 20s in the book, fresh out of college with no where else to go, and that setup works so much better than the concept of a 40-year-old woman moving across country to a tiny town for a single semester because her husband was working on his thesis?! So much of the story felt incomplete, and yet somehow managed to be so boring at the same time. 41 minutes in and I paused the film to see how much time was left and then groaned to discover there was a lot more to go. Too many characters were thrown in for inclusions sake because they were in the book, like Naomi's faux "boyfriend" Ted, who really had zero purpose except to tell her at the end that she's not a good listener. Justice for Ted, he deserved better. The high school kids were the best part of the movie, and they were all so underdeveloped. Why bother creating these secondary characters for little to no reason? I have so many questions about the directors' choices on what to add/subtract from the original plot. Why was the coach having a torrid affair with a student made such a central point and how is it realistic that the whole town just accepts that he does this repeatedly? It amounts to absolutely nothing. No resolution, no Laidlaw getting his. And Julia proclaiming, "but what if she really loves him?!" Yikes. All the criticisms I've read from professionals are spot on. The tone is all over the place, weird 4th wall breaks that do not work, cartoons and hot pink type thrown in, and no, the directors claiming they just "like weird" and the rest of us "don't get it", is not a valid reason. The entire blizzard scene, the climax of the film: dramatic music, weird monologuing and ultimately changing the original ending...was it supposed to be so bad it was silly?! I honestly could not tell. "I'm saving your life, man!" Cringe. These two should really just focus on their own acting careers rather than keep trying to force this 2fer to happen. It never goes well. As someone on letterboxd said, no one self-sabotages their career better than Lily Rabe (and Hamish Linklater).