Breaking the Waves (1996)

That was an excellent one.

Powerful

As Good As It Gets

Absolutely the worst movie.

Love above all. That seems to be the theme, the leit-motiv of this movie. However although this theme could deliver the necessary ingredients to make a good movie, it becomes too strange to be good. A young naive girl falls in love with a man a bit older than her but who corresponds deeply to her love. Their mutual love is physically and spiritually overwhelming. All this takes place in a remote place of northern Scotland where a puritanical and fundamentalist religious community dominates and morally rules. The husband works at sea in an oil rig and suffers a serious accident there which breaks his neck making him totally disabled. This fact unchains a series of actions and reactions also in psychological and affective terms, some of them very odd, uncommon and perverted, namely in the sexual field that reveal that they both have neurotic personalities which makes those events a bit difficult to be accepted in terms of reality or to have an aesthetic value in terms of cinema or literature. This movie is of some value only for its good direction and excellent performance of all actors and actresses.

Bess McNeill is a young woman living in a conservative coastal village in Scotland. Against the wishes of her church she marries Jan, a Scandinavian worker on an oil rig. She is insanely in love with Jan and can't bear it when he leaves to do his shift on the oil rig. Then Jan is injured at work and everything changes.A Lars von Trier movie that covers some interesting themes – obsessive relationships, euthanasia, manipulation, dogma and the lengths people go to for love. Some of these are only touched on though, with no real development or conclusion. Moreover, the story is told in a very drawn-out fashion. The movie could easily have been less than two hours long but von Trier stretches it out to over 2 ½ hours through extending scenes well beyond their usefulness and including scenes that add nothing to the movie.Not entirely engaging either, so the 2 ½ hours moves quite slowly. Bess is not a very likable character – irascible, controlling, intense and a tad insane. Ending is quite emotional though and provides good closure to the story. Another plus is the great soundtrack.Overall, reasonably interesting but is a test of patience.

When Roger arrives on the scene to praise a movie that's hardly known or recommended, you just know he's doing his usual and relentless routine of The Emperor's New Clothes. Seriously, the man is a total fool. He even looks like one. It's nothing to do with rating a movie fairly or intelligently, and everything to do with him trying to convince people that he is an intellectual/movie expert, which he is not. He's just a rather silly man who should have become a wine taster—another phony-baloney load of pretentious crap.This film is ridiculous. Like most bad movies, the two most serious flaws are the pacing and the plot. Both are awful here. Some mentally ill woman (who talks to God, and then replies to herself, of course) is made even more mentally unstable when her crippled husband decides he wants her to romp with every man she can, so he can get off on the details. And she does. It sounds like some sort of bad porn movie, doesn't it? But, apparently, that's not what the writers were going for.There isn't any believability to it, either. She just does it—no questions asked. No-one does a thing about it, despite the fact the whole village knows she needs help. The churchgoers throw her out. But the worst part of all this is that I've just summed up the entire movie for you. That's what they shove down your throat for two and a half hours. But I suppose it's better than what she was having shoved down her throat for much longer. The ending is the icing on the cake, which seems to be the pattern with the worst culprits. I.e., Vertigo, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Fight Club. Nothing turns Roger Ebert on more than a film about nothing. Believe that, because it's true.There really isn't anything about this film that makes one want to watch it a second time, unless you get off on it, like the woman's husband. It's just a plodding monstrosity of a film, and the good acting cannot save it. I am so tired of movies as bad and pretentious as this one getting high ratings simply because of liars, half-wits, and con men.1/5

An absolutely stunning, breathtaking Emily Watson gives what is the first of many incredible performances that make up a career of astonishing brilliance. This is certainly a magnificent beginning. Watson simply sets the screen on fire and melts your heart with her overwhelmingly moving portrayal of Bess. Seldom in the history of cinema has an actor made such an impact in what is virtually their first appearance. She simply brings the character to life and gives the young woman a living, breathing soul. What an accomplishment. Watson's eyes are electric and she speaks volumes with them. She uses her simple beauty to create a vision of awakening sexuality that is nothing less than explosive. This is a performance that will be remembered always as one of the greatest ever recorded on film. While the film itself is a somewhat flawed masterpiece, Watson is without a doubt fantastic beyond all comprehension. That she was not awarded an Academy Award renders the Oscars meaningless for all time. It is most likely that the members of the Academy were just too shocked by the brilliance of Emily Watson and felt threatened by her utterly profound genius.