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• 1981-08-24
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Female
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• 2003-10-17
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• Grammar Apprentice
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• Mimmi
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• Digging ½ a Trench. Having SomeGuy over.
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• the mid 80's
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• Naruto, RahXephon, Haibane Renmei, PMK, Ouran HSHC, Death Note, Bleach, Yakitate Japan
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• Less angsting - more energy!
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• Being incredibly silly
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Wednesday, December 14, 2005
It spoke to me, anyway
"Girl goes mute after a horrible event during her summer holidays. Steve Zahn is an Art teacher who tries to help by reaching out and giving her the language of art to communicate with. Will she find a way to tell someone what happened?"
– Fairly precise translation of the DVD cover.
The movie "Speak" is in no way groundbreaking, unique or controversial. Its focus is on Melinda who, after the summer holidays, returns to school a different person. Something happened during the summer, besides losing her circle of friends, that had a deep impact on her. Deep enough to slowly disintegrate the young girl into the silence enveloping her.
Perhaps it was the cover that threw my expectations of what would unfold, since it had been written in the style of a gossip magazine reporting a new Hollywood romance. Though just like those magazines sometimes have a miniscule amount of truth in it, so did the cover's review. Only tweaked to be more appealing. As if they didn't have faith enough in the movie to accurately describe it and felt a need to add spice, which made it look like the film maker had produced a clumsy/awkward story.
Melinda is more of a quasi mute, choosing [carefully] when to speak. The silence around her mirrors her own, in that it takes a vocal form (that might only make sense if you see the movie, heh) from time to time. And while Steve Zahn does help her, it's in a very unobtrusive and not deliberate way. At least in terms of its connection to the secret.
What the secret is can be guessed pretty easily/early and my initial reaction was that of disappointment, considering how the cover made it seem really gritty. Because it felt clichéd, like they couldn’t think of aything better. But shortly after it seemed as if the whole thing would land flat on its face, I realized there wasn't aything wrong with the movie. It was my mind set that was off.
From there on in, all the irritations created from aticipating a radically different story was slowly stripped away. Things came together and what at first seemed like a poorly made movie, turned out to be a litte bit different, somewhat more engaging and definitely worthwhile.
--
If you decide to see it, I will share that a scene that stood out for me was the hospital scene. By that time I had understood the movie and saw it for what it was. Very rewarding.
And maybe, just maybe, it was helped by being given a slightly misguiding review.
*returns to Photoshop with a clear conscience* >>
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