I was fortunate to attend a few screenings at the Sundance film festival this year. One of the films I saw was The Souvenir. It was written and directed by Joanna Hogg, and starred Honor Swinton Byrne, who is the daughter of Tilda Swinton, who also appears in the film. The acting in the film was great, and Honor Swinton Byrne has a great future ahead of her, based on this debut.
The film received the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance, and has received critical praise from reviewers…
however, I would not recommend this film to anyone to see. It was a bloated 2 hour long movie, with a story that could have been told in about 10 minutes, and that’s being generous. It was pretentious and in much need of major editing.
In the showing I attended which probably had 200 people in it, over 20 people got up and left throughout the showing. Talking to many of the viewers (strangers to me) on the sidewalk of theater after the showing, the majority said it was one of the worst movies they had seen, not just at the festival, but ever.
Just goes to show, that what may be critically a success, may be a bomb with the people that actually pay for tickets.