Best movie of this year hands down!

This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

Looking back at my viewings this year,one of the highlights was finally catching the Bourne franchise. Checking BBC iPlayer over Christmas,I was thrilled to discover a Patricia Highsmith Neo-Noir adaptation starring Bourne co-stars Paddy Considine and Julia Stiles,which led to me getting ready to hear the owl cry.The plot:Stuck in a bitter divorce, Robert Forrester begins spying on Jenny Thierolf,due to the image Forrester sees of Thierolf being of blissful happiness. Succeeding in not being spotted when her boyfriend Greg Wyncoop is in, Forrester's tracks get spotted by Thierolf.Telling her about his recovery from mental illness (always a good ice breaker!) Forrester gets set for the cops to be called. Understanding his issues, Thierolf invites him in,and starts a relationship with Forrester. Furious over his lover leaving him, Wyncoop starts making plans for Forrester to hear the "crying owl of death" as Thierolf lets slip how she met Forrester.View on the film:Looking ill at ease in every encounter, Paddy Considine gives an excellent,skin-crawling performance as Neo-Noir loner Forrester. Carry a well handled fake US accent, Considine expertly makes Forrester completely uncomfortable in his own skin,which is squeezed into every dark corner by Considine,whose ill-fitting clothes barely hide the shrunk view Forrester has of himself. Replacing Sarah Polley at the last moment, Julia Stiles gets an impressive grip on rural Femme Fatale Thierolf. Giving Thierolf an outer, emphatic appearance,Stiles digs into one of Patricia Highsmith major theme of a "good" character having a narrow vision and being blind to the Noir decay seeping in.Flying from music Videos to a Noir adaptation,writer/director Jamie Thraves dissects an icy Neo-Noir that cuts deep into Highsmith's major themes,with Thraves making every Noir loner be "detached" and unable to connect with the shattered conditions of each other. Uncoiling a possible murder, Thraves sharply tugs at Forrester's fragile mental state and pushing down to hit Forrester with a freezing shark of Noir serendipity.Walking on the pure snow with Forrester,director Jamie Thraves & cinematographer Luc Montpellier melt it with a blistering evil under the sun Noir atmosphere,cracking the pristine image of Thierolf by stepping into the dark side street Forrester is trapped in. Bringing acid snow down with a blunt use of violence, Thraves releases pure Noir magic of switching the point of view to the audience,who are given the chance to stalk and look into Forrester finally having a "blissful" view,as Forrester hears the cry of the owl.

"The Cry of the Owl" is a 2009 Canadian psychological-drama with thriller elements based on the Patricia Highsmith novel. The story revolves around Robert Forrester (Paddy Considine) who has a great job, but is in the process of a divorce and has recently moved out of the big city. He becomes intrigued by a random girl he spots at a country house and secretly gazes at her from the woods at night. A relationship eventually develops and the girl, Jenny (Julia Stiles), starts overly-monitoring him and he begins to regret the relationship. Meanwhile, Jenny's ex (James Gilbert) isn't happy about the situation and neither is Robert's ex (Caroline Dhavernas). The situation soon spirals out of control.The story is fairly engaging and the actors are effective, particularly Considine as the protagonist, but the ending is ambiguous and left to interpretation. Regardless, the themes are intriguing: romanticism vs. logic, fate and fatalism vs. chance encounter, omens and signs vs. random happenings and the irony of role reversal or reaping what you sow.It's not great and it's too pessimistic -- probably because it's really a tragedy -- but it's a solid psycho-drama with intriguing ideas that'll leave you pondering or scratching your head. The latter is why many people don't like it.The film runs 100 minutes and was shot in Ontario.GRADE: B

A work of art must have some coherence, even if its gaps and lacunae challenge an auditor. This one is a mess. The girl "inexplicably" becomes attracted to her stalker (as the summary says). He rejects her because he prefers to see her happily washing the dishes. His rival hides out in Chicago with the connivance of his ex-wife (how did they hook up?) and, instead of concocting a clever revenge, the rival just shoots through a window, mortally wounding the young man's neighbor and nicking him. (He later wanders through the hospital, untreated in his blood-stained shirt). The stalkee "inexplicably" commits a ritual suicide (why? -- she doesn't really say). Then the shooter is released (!), albeit when his deadbeat father "inexplicably" pulls in the local power structure. The ex-wife begs for the ex-husband to exculpate her. How could he, even if he wanted to? Styles must have been really puzzled by her character, who is, finally, just plain nuts. But "inexplicably" -- there's no basis for her bizarre behavior. I would not wish this flick on anyone. The final sequence is macabre and unbelievable and, don't worry, the film has no ending. It just stops. But an hour and a half too late. Fantasy demands that we accept the rule of the world the writer creates. Live drama demands that we suspend our disbelief. This one asks that we keep believing in things that both could not happen and cannot be believed when they do.

I am one of those people who believes that all good scary/thriller movies and books have one thing in common that makes them so scary: They could happen to you.The events that take place in this movie have not happened to anyone, ever. They aren't believable, not in the least. So the film doesn't work as a drama, either, because the entire time, you're distracted, wondering: "WHEN does that happen???" Aside from the outlandish plot, the writing was clumsy. For a long time, I wasn't sure who the protagonist was supposed to be, and when I was sure, I wasn't motivated to care. I was just waiting for the movie to end. And the director, it seems, didn't care, either. Every scene went: Establishing shot, close-up of Paddy, close-up of Julia, splash of red, close-up of Paddy staring at Julia, patch of blue, scene. It didn't help that the actors were walking through their roles, too. They were bland and tasteless, and I'll be polite and leave it at that.Five minutes in I was laughing hysterically and saying, "It's a dark comedy, right? Please tell me it's a dark comedy." If it were a dark comedy, I'd like it a lot better. Point is, it's still boring. Whether it's a drama, thriller, dark comedy, whatever the hell it was originally intended to be--believe me, I have no clue--I was bored out of my skull, and I wanted my money back.