On The Brink

Another film that I have recently watched. Sadly I wasn’t completely awake or compos mentis at the time of watching due to mild inebriation and the fact that I was gradually acquiring one absolute bugger of a headache. Anyway, I enjoyed it, and it was interesting. One of those films that is slightly confusing when you start to watch it and then you feel terribly clever when you piece it all together and then rather stupid when you realise that everyone else got it when you got it too and you have no real reason to feel that clever.

Lots of depression, mental illness, and a possible parallel world, as well as various delusions and things. Those are the themes. It had the feel of a comic-book remake – I have no idea whether or not this is the case – due to the visual imagery and costumery used – some very strong visual tropes and metaphors and some very steampunk styling. Captivating characters, although none of them seemed terribly happy but then I rather feel that that was the point. And a it was nice to see an appearance from Jeff from Coupling (no idea what the actor’s name is, but there you go. Incidentally, on the subject of Coupling, it’s a great show, and furthermore the last series is definitely just as worth watching as the first three despite the absence of Jeff (though it would be nice to have more of a conclusive ending to Jeff’s story – or to see him again properly), very funny, although it makes me worry about my thirties already…!) although also odd to see him being serious and a grown-up.

I can’t really say much more without giving away lots of the plot, but you should definitely watch it. It feels a bit Neil Gaiman or Cory Doctorow somehow, and like I say, dystopic, dark, and comic-book-y, in an entirely good way. I very much enjoyed it. The DVD case compares it to Donnie Darko and other films and I can kind of see why but I’m not sure that that does it justice. Anyway, very enjoyable. Also, Eva Green – beautiful, as ever.