Colonia- 7/10
As a Emma Watson fan these days finding films that she has worked on become more and more scarce and with her taking a year off in 2016 to focus on her gender equality activism its probably going to be a long time before we see another flick from her. As of now i know Beauty and the Beast isnt getting released until 2017 and The Circle to which she co-stars with Tom Hanks is either later this year or into 2017 as well. However, here we are with Colonia we see her in probably her most meaty role since Perks of Being a Wallflower. The story revolves around a woman named Lena (Watson), a stewardess who is romantically involved with a German citizen/activist named Daniel (Daniel Bruhl) to which his activism in Chile leads to him being arrested and sent to a camp lead by head cultist Paul Schafer (Michael Nyqvist) who has created a confined community to which he separates the women from the men and also children. Its never quite clear what the men do during their stay in terms of workload but the women are forced to work in corn fields and such while being treated like second rate citizens. It also becomes clear that Schafer has a fondness for the young male children of the community which only adds to the utter disdain i have for this character.
Never the less Lena signs up to join the colony in order to find her true love but at first finds it hard to find him and to come to grips with what is expected of the women in Colonia Dignadad. The movie certainly has some tense moments and on the surface has a pretty good plotline. The greatest problem for me with the film is somewhat what i felt after watching Emma in Regression and that she seems to carry over certain mannerisms and expressions from movie to movie. Right now her versatility as an actress has kind of hit a plateau and leveled off without any progression. Also the movie feels rushed in certain parts as some of the scenes do not have any room to breathe or unfold long enough, an example would be the ending where even though i felt the little clips of real footage (this is based on a true story) are fine but i would of liked to have seen more resolve at the end with the characters i was watching instead of just ending the way it did. But like i said there are some quality moments in the film and it does give you an uneasy feeling at times but lack of character development outside of the two main characters kind of leaves a gaping void that needed to be filled to make the story stronger.
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by EastCoastBronco
