Aloft (2015)

Simply Perfect

A Disappointing Continuation

It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

This was a good watch but there were so many parts that didn't make sense. After watching the film, I came online to read what people had to say and behold! I was right, some key parts were missing from the US theatrical version, at least fifteen minutes of footage was left on the cutting room floor and I feel they should have at least left in the part where grown up Ivan (Cillian Murphy) and the journalist (Mélanie Laurent) had an affair. It would have explained why he suddenly became affectionate towards her (this alone changed the course of the movie without rhyme or reason) in the final quarter of the film as well as made the story come full circle with the issue of abandonment that seemed to plague Ivan's lineage. The main characters were mostly unlikable but the actors behind them were good enough in the roles to keep you interested in what happens next. All in all it was definitely worth the watch and not as bad as it was reviewed.

i just finished watching the movie.. Didn't know anything about it before...Didn't know what it was about about! i just knew the actors!in the beginning i couldn't understand what it was about.. i just felt sorrow for that pour mothers dream and hope to save her son! By the middle of the film all my emotion when to the boy the guilt he must have felt and the courage to say what he believed! he didn't want to believe that his mother could heal because if she did then his brother would have lived and the accident would have been more harmful for him! Like a strong boy that he was ...he coped with the loss his own way...as his mother did! who is to blame more ! i am not a mama so for sure i would say the mother...But all this emotion the movie gave me..it was worth the while to see the movie! Not for everyone of course!! but if you are looking to open up your mind in a other way of thinking..perhaps you don't understand..but i enjoyed it!! As the ending left us sort not knowing if the girl was saved or not.. probably both ways hurt! For me...she got saved and the boy forgave his mom and himself for the accident! He was always strong...

In the opening scenes of the brooding titled ¨Aloft¨ or ¨No Llores Vuela¨ , a young boy carrying a falcon rushes along with his mom (Jennifer Connelly) across a bleak , frozen stretch of road in the Arctic , on their way to see a mysterious faith healer . She is Nana , a single , working-class mother desperately seeking a solution for her youngest child Gully (Winta McGrath) , who suffers from a brain tumor , while also dealing with her precocious , restless older son Ivan (Zen McGrath). Nana lives in northern Manitoba , working part-time on a farm , where she is having an affair with her married boss and attempting to raise her two young sons . In a last-ditch effort to save him from his terminal illness she drags her kids to that aforementioned faith healer (William Shimell) . Later on , us we follow a mother and her grown-up son (Cillian Murphy) . Nana has a great strength , almost stoicism, and she will become a renowned artist as well as healer , and he will grow into his own as an expert falconer married to an attractive woman (Oona Chaplin) . In the present , that puts the very meaning of life and art into question , so that we may contemplate the possibility of living life to its fullest , despite the uncertainties littering our paths . Tracking a journey by a documentarian , Jannia (Mélanie Laurent ), and her subject (Cillian Murphy) toward the North Pole . As journalist Jannia and accomplished falconer Ivan brave punishing winds and frozen but crackling lakes to visit his strange mother . There takes place an encounter between the two that will bring the very meaning of their lives into question .This Faith-Healing drama is moody , downbeat , slowly paced , somber , dark and attempts to comment on humanity , or the lack of such in the world . ¨Aloft¨ is as remote as its Arctic setting , as the story is certainly rare but with great actors though protagonists leave us cold . Like cheeks on a freezing day , any curiosity or interest the sparse script engenders is puckered dry by the end , leaving behind only an irritating numbness ; and including some ethereal , semi-supernatural roots . The picture relies heavily on the thunderous relationship between a troubled woman who gets reacquainted with her adult son ; both of whom marked from a past event marred by an accident that tears them apart . The family's tough-to-follow saga is one of abandonment and reunion , with filmmaker as well as writer Claudia Llosa showing both to be equally taxing in their own ways . The film holds itself at an icy remove from its audience , rendering its characters as impenetrable as if they were encased in ice . Nice performances from Jennifer Connelly as a struggling mummy encounters the son she abandoned 20 years earlier , delving her evolution to becoming a renowned healer , Cilliam Murphy as a peculiar falconer who bears the marks of a double absence and Mélanie Laurent as the young journalist will bring about an encounter between the two main starring . The freewheeling camera often stays close on the important cast , which also includes Oona Chaplin , William Shimell and Ian Tracey . Furthermore , a colorful , cold and evocative cinematography by Nicolas Bolduc . Sensitive and and relaxing musical score by Michael Brook . This thoughtful , meditative , thought-provoking , but deceptive flick was regularly directed by Peruvian director Claudia Llosa who previously directed the magical realism-infused 2009 drama titled "The Milk of Sorrow" , it told the story of a rare disease transmitted through the breast milk of pregnant women who were abused or raped during or soon after pregnancy . This was her first English-language film titled "Aloft" , like her prior two features — debut "Madeinusa" and Golden Bear-winning follow-up "The Milk Of Sorrow" , "Aloft" boasts Llosa's magnificently lyrical eye for photography and her unassailable slickness to originate a haunted , slightly otherworldly atmosphere even out of banal happenings .

"Aloft" is a film from last year written and directed by Claudia Llosa. It was her 3rd full feature film, but first long movie in 5 years after the Oscar-nominated "Milk of Sorrow". It was also her first work with big names from Hollywood such as Oscar winner Jennifer Connelly, Cilian Murphy and Mélanie Laurent. The information on the IMDb page says that this one here runs for over 110 minutes, but the version I saw went roughly 20 minutes shorter.This film play during two different times. The first would be when Murphy's character is still a little boy and we see how he gets disconnected with his mother, the second playing decades later when Murphy's character meets her again and also meets his love interest played by Laurent. I personally found that this film went mostly for emotion without elaborating convincingly on the characters. The apparently terminal illness of Laurent's character, the falcon shooting, the other boy's actually terminal illness etc. It felt like this film wanted to get the audience to cry at all costs, but forget to deliver in terms of storytelling unfortunately. This is also why overall I cannot really recommend this movie. Quite a shame as the actors are certainly talented.