By far my favorite throw-away gag from this episode is Bob hoping to learn about Bee Keeping and walking up to random crates and asking "Are you a Bee Hive?"
The cinematography felt so uninspired and boring. Nearly every shot in the first third were perfectly static cameras, placed orthogonally lined up on a single object (door frame, bush, pulpit) or a strong vertical smack dab in the middle of the frame. And the characters simply milled about within the static frame, as if they were not as important as the bush front and center.
I specifically remember the first camera pan in the movie; When Toller arrives at Mary's house the second time and the camera is centered on a bush in the hard. Toller's car arrives and Mary helps him out of it out of frame, so that they could walk back into frame and the camera trollies with them to the drive way.
Maybe this style goes with the storytelling of the film, which is deliberately subtle as others have pointed out. Though it is clear and pointed when it comes to its central theme of environmentalism and commercialization, the supporting details are deliciously understated. Like Toller selling souvenir hats as a supposably active house of worship, all the while our first scene inside the Abundant Life megachurch is a shot of their five thousand seat concert hall with multiple microphones, amplifies, and other expensive sound equipment visible behind the state.
Toller's character arc is biggest reason the film didn't land for me. I often have trouble relating to tests of faith, and this film is no exception. I couldn't quite tell if the film was trying to point to an inherent inconsistency with believe, or venerate the virtues of the faithful. Toller's rebuttal to Michael that life is about holding two contradictory truths in your mind simultaneously seems to point to the former. However, in the same monologue Toller asserts that we all want rational answers to troubles, but there is no rational escape from despair; only faith can keep us from the darkness.
This is making me so Hot! LOL
This was the most powerful, heart-wrenching episode I've seen yet
