20140216: Drama Review Nuit 1

Nuit 1

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. Canadian live action feature length film, 2011, NR, 87 minutes, drama, indie.
2. IMDB: 6.4/10.0 from 353 audience ratings.  The spoken language is French with English subtitles.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 63% on the meter; 55% liked it from 376 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 2.8/5.0 from 4,929 audience ratings.
5. Written and directed by: Anne Emond.
6. Starring: Catherine de la Leon as Clara, Dmitri Storoge as Nikolai.


2. Setup and Plot
1. Clara and Nikolai meet at a rave.  They go home together.  They have sex.


2. She cannot sleep, takes a bath, then leaves.  He calls her back before she's out the door.


3. They talk, endlessly, in long, pointless, low-energy monologues. Then they talk some more.  The problem is, their lives are flat, failed, undistinguished, prosaic: the lives of two slacker drug users who cannot engage life.  Who cares?  Self-loathing is just not appealing.


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: Two boring slackers discuss their uninteresting one night stand.
2. Two stars of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 7/10 Fairly good for the difficult low light conditions often chosen by the director.  When there was sufficient light, the visuals were rather good.


2. Sound: 5/10 OK, though nothing great.


3. Acting: 4/10 Meh.  Any high school drama student could have swapped in for either of the principals.


4. Screenplay: 4/10 Plain, boring, non-engaging.  The script is not clever enough to make one care about the characters, who are about as engaging as lichen on rocks.  Write an essay, get it published, get it out of your system, but don't make a film about it, especially one this bad.