Too slow and boring for me. I thought this was going to be a gothic horror and it was mostly a gothic romance.
Seeing The Little Stranger is like being chauffered around a private estate. The driver knows what he's doing and the view is pleasant but the ride is too slow and there are no surprises because you've seen all of this before.
I went into this knowing nothing and I really, really dug it. The few blurbs I saw about it said it was more boring than scary, but I was hooked. And I don't usually go for the slow burns like this.
What exactly was the point of this?
An "atmospheric drama" with no atmosphere and precious little drama
I remember when I first saw Paul Thomas Anderson's Inherent Vice (which I loved) in 2014, a colleague of mine (who hated it) was unable to grasp why I had enjoyed it so much. I tried to explain that if he had read Thomas Pynchon's 2009 novel, he'd have appreciated the film a lot more, to which he posited, "one shouldn't have to read the book in order to appreciate the film." I think I mumbled something about him being a philistine, and may have thrown some rocks at him at that point. So imagine my chagrin when I watched the decidedly underwhelming The Little Stranger, a huge box office bomb ($417,000 gross in its opening weekend in the US), and easily the weakest film in director Lenny Abrahamson's thus far impressive oeuvre. You see, I really disliked it, but the few people I know who have read Sarah Waters's 2009 novel (which I have not), have universally loved it, telling me I would have liked it a lot more if I was familiar with the source material. To them, I can say only this – "one shouldn't have to read the book in order to appreciate the film."
For my complete review, please visit: https://boxd.it/wRMLX
Being rather disappointed with the book I wonder if this will be any better...
Edit.
And the answer is nope. Like the book this is slow and laboured with too much ambiguous 'spookiness' and appears to have been filmed through gauze as shorthand for 'this is the past' ...
Excellent scenery, photography and performances that are lost in a boring story and with poorly prepared outcome. There is little terror, so is tension. It is, in fact, a British drama about social ascension. Boring. Boring. Boring.
This was a horror movie...minus the dread and scares. It was a romance movie...without much in the way of relationship development. It was period drama about class issues...without a lot to say. This is a film that is, simply, boring. With such a solid cast and the director of the amazing Room, maybe my hopes were set too high. The fact is, though, as much as I wanted to like it, I just couldn't bring myself to care.
Nothing against him, I’m sure he’s a nice person. But damn, I’ve seen couple of movies now for Domhnall as a lead and that man can’t carry a movie if his life depended on it. He has some of the most boring, stiff and bland performances ever. This movie felt like 12 hours and I still can’t remember a single genuine expression he made.
Like others have described, it is a slow-burner of a movie. Some might say that nothing much happens for most of the film. The pacing is quite slow, so you have to have patience. The acting is really great, Domhnall Gleeson, Ruth Wilson, and Charlotte Rampling really shine here. I think the film could've been executed a little better, for much of the film it focuses on a will they/ won't they - type romance between Domhnall Gleeson and Ruth Wilson, so the turn into a thriller doesn't go smoothly.
Shout by Lee Brown Barrow Movie BuffVIP 3BlockedParent2018-11-15T21:09:51Z
A slow-burn of a thriller - part supernatural chiller, and part thesis on the British class system. It's a slight disappointment, bearing in mind it comes from the director of the excellent Room, but despite the slow pace, there is some intrigue here. The big payoff bears scrutiny, and I would be interested to hear your thoughts.