Well-intentioned, but slow
You don’t have time to waste on long-winded movie reviews.
You want to cut to the chase and find out what is good and what is bad, right?
Well, Jason Evans is here to give you all you need to know about movies in
exactly 100 words (not 99, not 101). Here is his 100-word review of Stillwater.
The Premise: Written and Directed by Tom McCarthy
(Spotlight, The Visitor), “Stillwater” is loosely based on the story of Amanda
Knox. By loosely, I mean it is about a young American woman convicted of
killing her roommate while living in Europe. Other than that, the two stories
are very different. In “Stillwater,” Matt Damon stars as Bill Baker, a
down-on-his luck oil-rig roughneck who goes to Marseille, France to visit his
daughter Allison (Abagail Breslin) who is stuck in prison. Allison allegedly
murdered her roommate, with whom she was in a lesbian relationship. Bill
decides to stay in Marseille and attempt to find the man Allison claims really committed
the crime. As his trail of clues mostly goes nowhere, he begins to develop a relationship
with a helpful French woman, Virginie (Camille Cottin), and her young
daughter, Maya (Lilou Siauvaud).
The 100 Words: A film can be well-crafted without being very entertaining. Stillwater falls into this camp. The movie drags and doesn’t go anywhere all that interesting. Damon’s character is on screen the whole time, but he is unemotive and borderline unlikeable. The best part of the movie is the young girl Maya, who is full of life and magnetic. But, her story is largely relegated to the background. It feels like McCarthy could not decide if he was making a mystery like Spotlight or a character study like The Visitor. It's a quality film, but one I just cannot recommend.
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