With this movie I feel as though the original idea was probably to make this story more in-depth and come to an actual conclusion rather than have it turn out the way that it did which, don't get me wrong, is still good, but I absolutely hated the way that this one ended and feel as though it could have been done better.
Even though I always try my best to avoid spoilers in every review that I do just know from this point forward that I suggest that you do watch this movie, I enjoyed it and recommend it.
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When I saw this pop up on my Plex subscription I was curious because I haven't seen Julia Roberts in anything for a while but I do know that she is A-list enough that she isn't going to accept just any ol' script that comes across her agent's desk.
The film begins with her waking up her husband and telling him that they are off to a place just outside of New York City to have a little weekend getaway with their family. It is at this point that she does the only internal dialogue narration that happens in the entire film and she let's the audience know that she "absolutely hates people." This is something that I think all of us have been able to relate to during at least one point in our lives because I will admit that there are a lot of times that the way the world has become annoys me personally to the point where I want most of the people around me to just leave me alone.
So for her and her family, getting out to a small town just outside of busy NYC for a weekend alone it is exactly what they were looking for.
Things seem to be going very well when all of a sudden very strange things start happening such as everyone losing wifi and television capabilities and at this point I will admit I was like "here we go with the no signal apparatus that needs to exist in order for thriller films to move forward!" In this instance though I was incorrect and it wasn't just that they couldn't get a signal, nobody could. The more and more strange things start to happen and I will only spoil one of them
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While they were at the beach an enormous oil tanker just keeps getting closer and closer until eventually everyone decides to run away as it crashes into the beach. The CGI during this portion of the film is wonderful but a bit later on that ends up not being the case.
When they return home from the beach they can't really find any information about what happened but just continue on with their dream weekend in a luxury beach home anyway. Then, later on, the owners of the house turn up at the door and this is where Netflix gets a bit Netflixy but I suppose they just can't help themselves.
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The owners of the home are a wildly successful black family and they are polite in asking if it is ok if they stay in their own home in the basement suite because they were in NYC when the blackouts started happening and they have nowhere to go. This is where Netflix simply cannot help themselves as far as the racial re-education is concerned because Julia Roberts' character shows signs of not wanting them in the house and not believing they actually own it. Of course they don't come right out and say it but it is implied that her main reason for feeling this way is because they are black.
Thankfully they don't focus on this for very long and as things start to get worse, the two families come together as a team to try to figure out why no communications are working, no TV stations are working, and more and more technology-driven features that all of us take for granted in our lives also no longer work.
I always kind of enjoy when they try to "Black Mirror" us in this way because take a look at your own life and take stock of how heavily you completely rely on the existence of technology to get really anything in your life done. The point is nailed home when Ethan Hawke's character simply tries to drive to the grocery store in the small town and is completely incapable of doing so without GPS even though he drove from that small town to the house he was in just the day before. They don't come right out and say it but the point here is that all of us, myself included have allowed technology to be the dominant factor in our ability to simply survive.
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Before all coms are lost it is explained to us that the problems is because of cyberattacks taking place all over the United States in a coordinated strike of unknown origin. After we catch a glimpse of that, televisions no longer work either, nor do radios. Everyone is completely in the dark, well not literally because for some reason they still have electricity.
The underlying message here, at least as I understood it, was that there are certain powers that be that are capable of simply flipping a switch and completely undermining everyone's way of life. Almost all of us wouldn't know what to do if one day all of a sudden our devices simply didn't work anymore. Does anyone even have a land line anymore?
I thought it was an interesting take on potential nation-ending strategies rather than just the usual bombs and aircraft sort of scenarios. Remove the technology that the population has become reliant upon to survive and they will quickly turn on one another... no reason to invade.
Should I watch it?
This is one of the better films I have seen in recent times. It was so good in fact that even though I had planned on a 2-movie night, I went to bed afterwards instead realizing that there was very little chance that I was going to stay interested in the 2nd one. It did me some good probably because this film is over 2 hours long. Like I said earlier on, I don't like the non-resolution way in which the film ends but I can only imagine that this was done on purpose by the producers and director so that the audience has a sense of filling in the blanks of what they were not told on their own.
Except for the tiny little bit of racial education that Neflix seems contractually obligated to throw into anything that they make, this movie was pretty fantastic and I recommend it. I don't know why Netflix didn't try to throw this into theaters any more than they did as it only had a limited theatrical run at "select theaters" which probably just means NYC and Los Angeles.
