the audience applauded

just watch it!

Charming and brutal

Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

A finger is found along with a bloody abandoned car. The victim is believed to be journalist Zenia Arden (Mary-Louise Parker). Police detective Henry Kelly fears being implicated in her murder as her secret source and love interest. He recruits ex-cop John Grismer (Shawn Doyle) to investigate. As Henry gets arrested for the murder, John finds that she had many enemies including her former boss Roz Andrews. She was staying with Charis White on Toronto Island and takes an interest in her daughter Augusta (Tatiana Maslany).This is adapted from the Margaret Atwood novel. I don't know much about the book. The first half is structured like a traditional police procedural. The investigation is essentially interviewing one character after another with one flashback after another and non of them can be relied upon. The twist in the middle is not surprising. I kept thinking that Henry is a cop in prison and every second counts. I never trusted Arden for one second which makes any backstabbing rather expected. It's obvious that he should have brought her to various security cameras so that the police would be able to check even if she runs away. The whole blood sample and notary preparation is unnecessary. None of these characters can be trusted and I'm not shocked at any possible resolution.

I don't know what Margaret Atwood was thinking to allow this movie to have the same name as her book. I've always been a big fan of The Robber Bride and was so excited to learn there was a movie in the works. I am aware that the translation of book to movie isn't perfect but this movie was the worst ever. The names of the women are correct and some of the back story is correct but that is about it. I feel like I lost a good portion of my time trying to make it through this movie. This really should have been a mini-series to tell the story the way it was written.The actors for Roz, Tony, Charis and Zenia were well-chosen even though I was skeptical at first about Mary-Louise Parker. I only wish they'd had a better script to work with because this really had nothing to do with the book at all.

I found myself comparing this to another psychological thriller I had seen recently - CACHE aka HIDDEN - much to the disadvantage of THE ROBBER BRIDE.The film begins with a scene that makes the viewer expect an investigation a la CSI. Instead it is a single individual investigating a team of trio of women for the possible murder of a woman they all knew in their university years. John's character and personality seems to disappear as we learn more about Zenia the possible woman and the women, Charis, Roz and Tony.None of the latter women engendered any of my sympathy, though the story argues (or does it?) that all three have been victimized by Zenia, who unerringly detects how best and how deeply the three can be hurt.I found the choice of Mary-Louise Parker interesting in that she resembled a younger, more feminine Margaret Atwood.I imagine that I missed a considerable amount of subtext because I have not read much Atwood, and as this is a fairly recent work, it very likely reiterates themes that she finds important.I edited the commercials out of the film, and was left with slightly less than 89 minutes; so I must applaud those who sat through the live broadcast of THE ROBBER BRIDE, often enduring lengthy 4 minute or longer commercial - I found it incredibly annoying to fight off the numerous pop ups, usually for forthcoming programming, to the extent that I couldn't read or digest the all important closing credits!

I watched this movie for its two hours and have absolutely no idea what it's about. Somebody got murdered or maybe they didn't and maybe somebody did it or maybe they didn't. This brought back memories of the good old days (bad old days?) when all CBC Canadian movies were stinkers. Lately stinkers have been the exception but this confused hodge podge of trendy feminism, mind reeling flash backs and mumbled dialogue makes up for lost time. I've never found Margaret Atwood's books easy to read. This movie continues that fine Canadian tradition. It isn't easy to watch. Maybe the trendy folks at the chi chi Toronto cocktail parties will pretend they liked it. Us folks in the boonies are a little less pretentious.