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

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

is was the worst film I have seen since Tree of Life. If you saw and liked The Tree of Life we have nothing in common.This filmmaker deploys state of the art technology to produce a film that might have some interest in an art gallery; but only you after you have walked your feet off and need a place to rest for 5 minutes. You could fast forward the film, see all the images and make a connection that that we have heard time and again.There is no story and no talking though I would love to have shouted out comments (preferably with expletives).The images were clear and there was music. The film can be deemed to possess artistic merit(almost anything not massed produced can be described this way) but hardly worth a dime, let alone the $16 I paid.

It's interesting that so many reviews of this film rate it poorly. Whilst I'd not give it 10 stars, it's certainly worth 7. The script is fine, the acting good, the direction and production OK - what's not to like? I guess a lot of the people who don't "get" this film were either expecting something quite different, or else they are not sailors. The general plot has been covered here several times so I won't repeat it again at length - it is a simple situational thriller in which a lone sailor, becalmed in the Indian Ocean, begins to experience vivid hallucinations. These are at least partly in reaction to the death of both her parents whilst her round the world single-handed attempt was under way.Were the "visitors" real? No, of course not - not one - they are all complete fantasies. Lone sailors frequently experience vivid, lucid hallucinations during long voyages. Watch "Deep Water", the recent bio-pic about the Golden Globe trophy in 1968, to get a taste of this in real life. One competitor went totally nuts and jumped overboard after creating an elaborate hoax regarding his position - another saw and talked to Bing Crosby whilst in the middle of the Atlantic! It's old news.What made the film gripping for me was the realization that, isolated as she was, her own mind was her greatest enemy. At one point she jumps overboard to escape imaginary pirates, and only comes back to her senses once on board again. Another time she sets fire to the boat to fight the "visitors". That's REAL terror - the knowledge that in an isolated and totally self-sufficient environment, you may do yourself or your only means of survival real damage during an hallucination. The one person you can absolutely trust, yourself, is suddenly someone to be feared. Truly terrifying, more so than any ghost story, and the actual point of the film.The end is sound and not at all muddled, as some people have said. She comes to grips with the death of her parents, most importantly by realizing that she was not to blame for the accident that left her father crippled or for her mother's eventual suicide. Her boyfriend is apparently unfaithful and her sponsor for the race has backed out. So, she does the best thing possible - she crosses the finishing line and then without stopping turns around and sails on to new horizons in New Zealand, perhaps to find the man with whom (it is hinted) she had a relationship before leaving on her voyage.Her mental stability is restored, and she's ready for life again, symbolized by her cat no longer "talking" to her, but just being a normal cat. Those who don't "get" the ending probably prefer simplistic endings where everything works out happily ever after for everyone. Go watch a Disney film instead - you'll probably prefer that.

First of all, 'Visitors, The' is not a common thriller. Far from that, the movie tells us a story about the rendezvous of a young yacht-woman (Mitchell)in a solitaire voyage around the world in a little boat with her own problems, griefs, fear and misunderstandings of a whole life. In this process, her mind derived away in a dangerous way, in which she is confronted with hallucinations involving her deceased parents, a strange lover and even her only companion in the trip - a cat named 'Taco' - starts to 'talk' to her. Good premise, even an intelligent one, but the movie lacks an indispensable deepness that the story must claim. Because of that, the result is a bit too contrived, not passionate or challenging. In fact, after some time in front of the TV, you'll feel a certain disappointment because a good idea was just mistreated. Radha Mitchell is good but her competence and her beauty are not strong enough to make this one a remarkable movie.

The general premise of this film is a time-worn reliable gimmick: the lone woman in jeopardy. In this case, an interesting slow-build up to the main plot device keeps audiences engrossed: a 25 year old adventuress embarks upon a solo sailboat journey around the globe. While suffering through an extended period of being becalmed in tropical waters, she begins to believe she is being visited by ghostly apparitions who intend to kill her. Initially, the plot is intriguing as we wonder whether these nocturnal fears are real or imagined. However, as the film progresses, it deviates from being a straight forward thriller and introduces a lot of awkward goobledy-gook in which our heroine is visited by ghosts of her departed parents, menacing pirates, long dead relatives, and ultimately some over-sized spiders! Before long, the tiny vessel is as crowded as the S.S. Poseidon. The acting is very credible and the photography is also admirable, but director Richard Franklin makes the cardinal sin of showing us far too much of the mysterious visitors and their omnipresent status eventually makes them no more menacing than party guests who refuse to leave even though it's the wee small hours of the morning. The cumbersome screenplay degenerates into a confusing mess, and a completely unsatisfying climax that betrays our expectations that there will be a "sting in the tail" ending that explains most of what has preceded it. In all, a noble effort, but a failed one.