The Reconstruction of William Zero (2015)

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

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

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

So a father who accidentally killed his son makes a clone of himself. The whole film I was wondering why he just didn't make a clone of his son. He made the clone of himself so he could run away, which he could have done anyway. That clone then made a clone of himself because. the movie needed a twist. That is at least the only logical explanation I could find. Also bad acting and directing. The main characters action was hard to understand. Especially the second William. And the twisted face of the second William was just weird. All in all I lost interest after 30 minutes but I endured to the end.

Briefly, the story evolves around the concept of clones, and a situation is conjured up as a sort of platform to deliver a plot theme centered on this arena of potential ethical questions.It could have been a fantastically compelling film, but just didn't quite get there.No spoilers here, so it's a bit difficult to focus on some of the key elements which are the demise of this effort.What stood out the most, perhaps, was the absurdly overdone emotional moments of the key clone character(s), which came off as just being syrupy, like emotional molasses oozing out of the screen.I know, it was supposed to represent the emotional neediness and psychological challenges of the main character(s), but it just came off painfully slow and pedantic.Just a wee bit too much on the self absorbed delusionary role playing . . . and a bit light on the actual functionality of the overall plot premise.Perhaps this might be remade somewhere in the future, with a different treatment.The concept is certainly interesting . . . but this version, well . . .

I didn't make it through to the end of this film, I have to be honest. Why? ...Because dear gawd it was dragged out far too much to death. It was a genuine sheer effort from the very start just to keep going in watching it. There was decent actors in it - and they tried they best - but my gawd, did it drag on and on! It was painful. The hope of a good story was there in the films description. There was glimpses of possible promise things was about to get better - but it never materialised. Such a shame. After over half way through I gave up the fight to find something to keep me interested while it dragged on. It was actually depressing watching it. Its atmosphere of the film in parts didn't help as it dragged on. If you are thinking of buying this on DVD or HD to watch it, don't!

The premise of this story is very promising - a thriller based on the concept of an apparent twin who turns out not to be all he, at first, thinks he is.At the risk of not wanting to spoil the movie, I won't say more about how things turn round, but the focus is always on the lead actor, Conal Byrne, who has to play William and William Zero and another allied character with enough distinction between the three that you can keep up with exactly which one he is meant to be.Thankfully Conal is up to the task and switches characters enough to be identifiably 'different' until the last chapter of the movie when the distinctions deliberately become blurred. As William Zero he has to appear practically clueless as to what is happening to him in the beginning and he almost pulls this off.Unfortunately the script advances too quickly for us to get a real feeling for the dilemma in which he finds himself and the progression, from what seems to be amnesia to the dawning of understanding exactly what he is, happens abruptly and without enough reaction to be credible.Similarly the reactions of the other characters in this story are also hurried and, therefore, appear unrealistic. Amy Seimetz, as the (ex) wife, does her best but isn't given enough dialog to carry through her predicament. In the end her conversion to the version of reality that she sees is too sudden and hardly seems in character.Overall I felt the screenplay was generally too predictable at times, whilst leaving a lot of questions unanswered at others (presumably to try and engender a feeling of mystery). There are twists and turns in the plot which, with better direction or a superior screenplay, could have been more entertaining, even shocking.The denouement is laughably simple (and requires another improbable leap of faith) and turns out to be what you might have been expecting all along. Of course there's no other outcome that could happen, but to give so many clues along the way, I felt, was unnecessary and leaves a limp ending.I'm left wondering how many scenes were heavily cut and are left littering the cutting room floor? The progression of the story feels heavily edited and this is the sort of movie where a typical preview of a more twisted, mysterious version might have elicited comments of 'I didn't understand it', forcing a different direction before the launch.This should have been a movie which throws up more questions, especially moral ones, than there are answers but, in that respect, it fails. On the thriller side it also doesn't score as highly as it could have done. At the end I was just left feeling that this could have been so much better.