Powerful

good back-story, and good acting

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

I watched this movie a while ago and it was one of the very few movies that left me completely lost in where to start the review. I liked it but there are a few points in the movie where the very fundamental genre of what this movie would be seems contradicted. I'll explain this later but while I did like it the movie is successfully 2 different movies at once.The plot to this movie starts out simple with 2 Documentary filmmakers trying to make a movie about the dangers of falling into a cult by pretending to be duped into one where they seem to worship someone from the future, with no clear cut evidence (although that's to be interpreted) It soon seems that they begin to doubt whether this cult that believes that someone from the future is guiding them to survival after the bombs drop is a lie. However whether they are duped or just playing an act can also be left to interpretation.I will say what's wrong with the genre of this movie. It's either a psychological thriller film about the dangers of being duped by a cult, done in such a way that is unpredictable and keeping you guessing or, that this is a story about people mistaking someone from the future trying her best to save people into thinking that she's a cult leader. Usually with movies like this I have a clear thought in mind as to which I believe (an example being that I think the fantasy world in Pan's Labyrinth exists in the movie's world) but this kind of threw me off at the very end. I was almost certain that the movie was a psychological thriller about the dangers of going into any kind of cult but it drops a huge bomb in a way that levels out everything else so I really don't know which to believe.Okay, onto the stuff which I can define and like. Well, The writing is one of those few unpredictable scripts. It really is left open whether they were believing the cult or not in as early as about a half hour in. After that I really don't know if the line between what they're believing or not is blurred. This angle is perfect, I was constantly questioning what the characters were saying and doing and whether they were psychologically affected or not, and I don't think you get a clear answer even after the movie is over.That and the acting is really good. If Brit Marling took up writing these movies to give herself material to work with and star in roles that show off how she can act then I think she should continue doing it because she's a pretty good actress. Everyone else is really good as well, Christopher Denham especially.I guess I better bring up complaints. The movie is done in little segments that always end and begin in a title. My problem with this is that the movie flows fine on it's own. That and characters just appear without knowing what significance they are going to have on the story until later. The cop looking for Maggie was the worst in this regard. She just appears in her apartment and the only thing I'm thinking at the time is "Um... Hi, who are you?" I also feel as though there should be some other focus on the fact that these people are documentary filmmakers doing it. I say this because there are about 3 or 4 scenes and no other people observing what is going on with them. Not speaking as anyone who knows about the making of a documentary but wouldn't there be someone else there in any way? One which role doesn't require signing up? It would have been better (and a lot more interesting) if they were unsure as to whether the people hiring them have gone crazy.In all honesty though, I think after analyzing it in my head over and over until I found out exactly what it was trying to be - this is the team's best movie. I did like Another Earth for it's drama and interesting, if unoriginal concept. This literally had me on my seat questioning the characters and what they're doing, making it one of the few movies where after a while I barely predicted any of it. I'll also say that this concept is also very interesting and one that honestly, I haven't seen before - at least not executed in this way. I'll say that it's probably at the end of the day one of the better indie films out there.

This film sucks on so many levels. If there is a story it takes so damned long to evolve that you're prone to losing the plot trying to keep tit in your numb brain. The acting is dreadful, except maybe the child, whose daughter is 20 years older than her, wtf? There was no music that I could recall except some excruciating 'song from the future'. A gun is drawn and at last I thought thee might have been some thrill. Wrong, yet another pointless scene. The secret sign made me cringe and reminded me of some childish fantasy, but way too tedious and stupid for a child to make up. The director should take up tiddly winks, might give his life some meaning.

This indie film, despite its flaws, including some annoyingly uninspiring cult indoctrination moments and the sub-Lost-non-ending ending, which leaves space for weirdos to interpret as a suggestion that cults aren't really just trying to steal your money and indoctrinate you into doing something stupid like kill yourself in tennis shoes, actually kept me excited to the very "end." I'm interested in seeing what these folks can come up with next time. The story was mostly good, and the production, even for a low budget film, was beautiful. I just hope they can resolve something in their next piece.

Let me begin by saying the movie was great throughout. It's original, thought provoking, and you are always suspenseful throughout the whole movie, guessing as to what could come next. For the budget it was made on, the movie looked quite professional, with great acting as well. But one of the big problems I noticed people had with this film was the plot holes, the missing details. Luckily, these aren't huge gaping holes that make the main story confusing, just details like why the child was acting so strange. There are two ways you could look at this though. You could see it as the directors being lazy and not explaining everything, or you could see it as the directors purposely leaving out those details, making you actively think about the video. I tend to think the latter, especially in this case. People said that inception was confusing too, but that's what made it so much better then your average movie. Rarely does a flick ever come along that makes you think instead on just passively watching a TV screen, and this is one of them.