Queen of Earth

source: Queen of Earth

A movie by awful Williamsburg trustfunders about awful Williamsburg trustfunders. I'm sure this has some appeal in Williamsburg among the trustfunders but for we mere mortals not in a movie about ourselves starring ourselves it's just dull. This doesn't even rise to the level of ciin-ee-mah school bad. Everything about this is terrible; the characters, the timing, the pacing. Even the camerawork is bad, it's actually out of focus some of the time. But the two really awful things about this are the dialog and the score. The 'dialog' isn't dialog in the classic sense. It's one character at a time spouting long long angry insane monologues. The characters don't interact so much as wait their turn on stage to spout angry nonsense. And the score. Oh it's priceless. It's two piano keys repeated over and over and over and over and over and over. Two notes. Two.The writer director is supposed to be some auteur some genius some wizard of the inner dialog of self. But he's not. The emperor has no clothes. If he makes another movie it's only because his dad knows a hedge fund guy who's kid also lives in Williamsberg

Alex Ross Perry's "Queen of Earth" is a very demanding psychological drama. It has indie feature written all over it, and looking at the reviews and ratings, it comes as no surprise to see that so many people were turned off by its slow-moving nature and the almost tedious length of its dialogues. On the surface, it could easily look like "Queen of Earth" consists of talking, long gazing and nothing else. But underneath its exterior, the film offers a thoughtful and deep exploration of the motivations and thoughts behind its main character, played superbly and memorably by Elisabeth Moss, and utilizes its obvious Bergman-esque influences to create a unique, mystifying and entrancing atmosphere. By the half point, I was entranced, at the end, I was almost sad to leave these characters behind. "Queen of Earth" is a highly unusual film in that there isn't much of a plot, but it still has a lot to say. It's definitely worth watching, but only for those who enter the experience with an open mind and are not easily turned off by the arguments I described above. Also, if you're a fan of Elisabeth Moss's work, then just watch it for her incredible performance which I personally cannot believe got completely left out of any awards conversations whatsoever.

Alex Ross Perry takes his cue from both Altman's "3 Women" and the films of Ingmar Bergman for this tale of two women in isolation, both geographically and emotionally. "Queen of Earth" finds Catherine, (Elisabeth Moss), and Virginia, (Katherine Waterston), holed up together at a lakeside house after an event in Catherine's life leaves her bereft. Perry shoots it largely in close-up so there's no respite; this is as up close and personal as it gets and both Moss and Waterston are magnificent. Naturally, it's a very claustrophobic little picture, airless and suffocating despite the sunlight and its deceptive warmth and it's clear from the first close-up of Moss' tear-stained face that stability isn't really her forte and as the film progresses, jumping back and forth in time, it soon becomes clear you wouldn't want to spend time with either of these women. It's also brilliantly written by Perry in that literary style we've become accustomed to. Indeed, this is one of those films you might actually want to read and it's clear it's not aimed at what we might call 'a general audience', (even more than "Listen Up, Philip" this is 'New Yorker Art-House'), and even at a compact 90 minutes it's a fairly gruelling experience, like being a fly on the wall at someone's psychoanalysis. Consequently, it is both disturbing and a masterclass in acting and the best psychological horror movie I have seen in a very long time.

Ha Haaa.Really? More than 6 points rated? This film is a complete NONSENSE.You are watching it and waiting for something interesting to happen and....nothing happens.So you want it to finish to be finally surprised and astonished by some twist in the script....but ....it never comes.The dullest film I've ever watched.And I've watched many,many ones.(Sorry about my bad English.I am writing from Argentina) So sorry I recommended this piece of sh.... to my daughter (after seeing the plot sumary in Netflix) and we were both looking each other and laughing because we couldn't believe such an awful movie had been made.Terrible waste of time.1 / 10

I'm only doing this in the hopes of saving the valuable time of other poor souls. Do NOT WASTE YOUR TIME with this piece of crap. Awful, from every possible point of view. Only one good point: most of the characters are people from actual GOOD shows/movies: Mad Men, Babysitters Club, even House of Cards! Good luck if you do choose to watch.

I like movies, all kinds. I've probably seen upwards of 4000 to 4500 movies. Occasionally I like to see a smaller, independent film like this one, it is good to see what types of new approaches are being tried. I found this on Netflix streaming movies. The reviews and comments are all over the place, from "I hated this trash" to "A really fine character study." My own evaluation is somewhere in between the two extremes, it is an interesting experiment but to me fails on most accounts. Elisabeth Moss is Catherine, whose successful and well-known artist father has recently died. She too is an artist, not as accomplished, and has gone into a funk of sorts. To refresh herself she travels to spend a week with her "best friend" at the friend's secluded lake house and do some drawing too. The friend is British actress Katherine Waterston doing a very authentic American accent as Virginia. We really get no backstory and are struck by how severe, judgmental, and uncaring Virginia seems to be. In fact she talks at one point about how she relishes getting people out of her life, including her newborn that we never really find out about. Then there is Patrick Fugit who is the intrusive lake house neighbor Rich. He is good but I hadn't seen him in anything since he was a teenager in "Almost Famous" and seeing him as a 30-something is a bit disconcerting. My fault, not the movie's. Anyway the problem I have with the movie is I never saw the main characters as having realistic conversations and discussions, as normal friends might. I was always aware that they were working off a script that someone wrote. And if the interactions between friends didn't seem real, what does that leave us with? Nothing because there is no big "ah-ha" moment before the ending. I am glad I saw it, I could not recommend it to anyone else.

I loved "Listen Up Philip" and found "The Color Wheel" very interesting (if also annoying), so I was very psyched for this latest by ARP. I'm not sure what it ultimately adds up to, script-wise, or how much weight it would have at all if not for the lead performance. But what a performance. Moss is remarkable. It's one of those descent-into-madness performances that's so riveting it almost doesn't matter that the narrative and explicating psychology are sketchy at best. I suppose that's partly the point--that our understanding of what is happening to the character is as fragmentary as her own understanding of it--but nonetheless it's a little frustrating. That doesn't matter all that much, though, because Moss is so fascinating to watch. Eventually I'll see the movie again, not only to experience that performance a second time, but also to see if the film has more substance to it (independent on that star turn) than it appeared at first glance.

I just finished watching this film and came here to read what other people thought about it. I was left with several impressions, perhaps the first being an echo of what's been written in other reviews which is that Elisabeth Moss's performance is stunning. She's a very interesting actress to me, in that her looks are not conventionally pretty and yet she has an awesome face because of the emotion she's able to convey through it. She strikes me as someone I would like to know, and that's not something I experience often. There is something so human and compassionate about her. But now I'm not sure how much of this is her and how much is the role she played here. Throughout much of this film I was almost eager for it to be over. It is slow, with many long shots of both the two main characters, and inanimate things such as stairs, paintings, and the lake. I especially like what another reviewer said which was something like the script and plot of this film are in the drama genre, whereas the setting, and music are like a horror film. (Sorry for the paraphrasing.) There was such an underlying tension throughout, which I'm sure was intended. I'm not so sure whether the confusion I felt throughout much of it was also intended. For example, I couldn't really understand the relationship between Moss's character and that of Katherine Waterston's. There seemed to be so little good feeling between them, that it was hard to understand why they were even spending time together, beside it being their annual ritual. In the end, and this is the kind of film I feel the need to see again, I'd say it was really about a woman's descent into madness. Through the flashbacks we learn that Catherine (Moss) had some problems before the death of her father, but that during the week that the film depicts, she unravels, and gets "worse" every day, that is, more paranoid, manic, and depressed. The ending was also ambiguous; she has gone, but the question of where, lingers. Did she ultimately jump into the lake and commit suicide like her father, or did she get herself together and leave a bad situation. I wonder if anyone besides the writer and director knows. If you're into psychological films, films about madness, or just enjoy watching great acting, definitely catch Queen of Earth.

Queen of Earth follows a woman who, after her boyfriend breaks up with her, goes on a trip to a somewhat secluded cabin with her best friend, and ultimately they run into some troubles in their relationship. I liked how this movie was shot. There were some pretty lengthy shots that were just people talking, meaning that they had to memorize a lengthy set of lines and recite them while maintaining their character. Moreover, some of the shots were just kind of pretty to look at. There were some cool ideas. The way it tried to use symbolism and portray the main character's ongoing conflict was kind of cool, but unfortunately it didn't work out. The biggest thing that really brought this movie down was the dialogue. I've seen bad dialogue and writing before, but this tops all of those. Characters often embark on long lectures and speeches that sound like they were both pre-written and practiced. Not only was the dialogue unrealistic, but the meaning of it was also awful. The two main characters, who are supposedly best friends, spend the entire movie elaborately telling each other why they are each horrible people. And they definitely aren't being sarcastic. How are these people still friends? Even in their flashback conversations they just trash-talk each other. Now you could argue that maybe I'm pointing out only the bad conversations they have, but they never say anything nice to each other. I recall one line from the entire movie where one of them says that she likes the other. That line was immediately followed by hate, however. So the movie never actually shows us that the two main characters are best friends despite stating that they are. Overall Queen of Earth is a bad movie. Sure, there were some cool ideas and pretty shots, but the dialogue is so incredibly awful that it's hard to enjoy really any part of this movie. In the end I definitely wouldn't recommend this movie.