Discuss The Girl with All the Gifts
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Weak child actor & directing (SPOILERS)
posted by RenovatioSTAFFMOD on June 12, 2017 at 10:47 AM
weak child actor... not even"average" quality and cant carry the movie... I don't know what some critics are on about, calling her a revalation and such... what are they going to say when the see a kid who can actually act well?
compare this to kids in Hanna or the Sixth Sense and you really see the difference in what is great child acting vs something slightly below average which we have here... the kid in the Babadook was pretty good as well
in this movie, the girl was very weak, in particular it shows in the pivotal scene where she confronts Glen Close's character about her species supplanting humanity... totally unearned scene due to lack of nuance in acting and directing... If the movie didnt rely on her character so heavily, she'd be passable... its only a zombie movie afterall
Reply by HoneyWest
on August 2, 2017 at 10:44 AM
I watched this movie last night with no knowledge at all going in on the story or any of the reviews and was blown away. Loved it and thought the the girl that played Melanie was excellent. For me her performance was beautifully understated and powerful. Interesting to see how differently you saw it. It is all subjective or course, perhaps me having no prior info allowed me to enjoy it more? I found this to be a great little gem of a film.
Reply by JustinJackFlash
on August 2, 2017 at 11:03 AM
I liked it. With all the zombie films we've been bombarded with I wasn't looking forward to any more. But this and Train to Busan managed against all odds to be enjoyable and worthwhile.
Reply by Renovatio
on August 7, 2017 at 8:33 AM
Train to Busan was a lot of fun
Reply by krashd
on February 6, 2018 at 3:06 AM
I saw Melanie as naive and somewhat oblivious to the dangers around her. She was after all a prisoner who had never seen the outdoors before. I got the impression the director instructed Sennia to seem joyful and upbeat despite all the devastation around the character and so I can see how that could be taken as poor acting or standing out from the movie. Though to be fair I might be excusing poor acting as something that I presumed to be direction. I dunno.
It reminds me of the film The Road, the kid in that movie got a lot of heat for seeming feeble and immature, like when he cries after seeing a dead body or when he runs after the child he saw, folks said it was unrealistic but if you imagine yourself as a 12 year old in an upside down world where you have never seen another child and your dad has shielded you from everything you start to realise why the character acts the way he does.
Reply by Renovatio
on February 6, 2018 at 4:53 AM
@krashd I know what you mean about those criticisms of the child actor from the road... I think people have, ironically, an unrealistically narrow definition of what is realistic behaviour... You see it increasingly and not only for child actors but even in genre movies, which have very over the top themes and tropes 😁
And that's not even considering that not all acting is meant to be realistic anyway!
The acting in The Killing of A Sacred Deer is a good recent example of this 😉