Nothing Personal (2010)

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

best movie i've ever seen.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

A woman (Lotte Verbeek) has suffered some sort of loss. She's playing with her ring. Strangers are grabbing her belongings left outside her apartment. She goes hitching into the Irish countryside. She stops at a farm where Martin (Stephen Rea) offers food for work. They collect seaweed from the coast to fertilize the land. She refuses to give him any personal information including her name. They find solace in each other's damaged lives.These two damaged characters are played by compelling big-time actors. It's a quiet movie filmed by first-time Polish-Dutch director Urszula Antoniak. It's all about the quiet which sometimes generates powerful moments. Mostly, it's just quiet. It's an interesting debut.

This film directed by Urszula Antoniak is what I would call non-gimmicky non-formulaic independent film. It's basically a two person film with terrific laid back performances from Stephen Rea, a wonderful Irish actor, and Lotte Verbeek, a Dutch actress.Verbeek is mysterious drifter who comes upon Rea's isolated home on the Irish coast. At first, she is hostile to any interactions with him. However, over time in slow and subtle ways they begin to bond. It all leads to what I thought was a touching and appropriate ending.I found this to be a surprisingly quiet wonderful film. For those with no patience probably not the film for you.

Based on the Locarno credentials of this movie (garnering six awards at that event, not counting many others) I decided to take a dive into some of my expatriate's work abroad. A very simple tale about Anne (Lotte Verbaek), who cuts away from everything connected to her previous life in Holland (most likely due to the death of her husband, but we can only speculate the real reason) and backpacks to Ireland. There she comes across an elderly fisherman, Martin, (the brilliant Stephen Rea), who lives in solitude in a desolate location close to the sea. On their encounter Anne is extremely rash, even rude, being in a state devoid of any warmth or friendliness. However they soon agree to an uneasy truce: Anne will work for food, but as long as no personal matters are touched.Set in untiringly beautiful locations of the Irish countryside the movie always manages to remain an eye-catcher (especially a fascinating peninsular, which is the main location of the movie), which helps keep the focus on the story itself, despite its very slowly unwinding rudimentary plot. Emotionwise I wasn't however fully convinced by Lotte Verbaek and additionally I did feel that several scenes/dialogues seemed not to fit the overall tone and logic of the movie. Nonetheless the whole story rings with a somber truth, as emotions and feelings catch the characters unawares, which leads to an absolutely heart-wrenching finale (the scene from the poster). Very simply crafted and set in the most basic human feelings it really has an unbelievable capacity to capture the attention and linger in memory.Despite it's flaws it remains a stunning, if very reserved, watch, which shows the immense potential of Polish-born Urszula Antoniak.

After finding herself alone and detached from society, an unnamed woman (Lotte Verbeek), backpacks through Ireland seemingly wanting to lead a solitary existence. With no more than the clothes she has on her back and some utensils like a small tent, the woman discovers an isolated house belonging to Martin (Stephen Rea) who also appears to be living his life alone.Nothing Personal tells an intriguing story of loneliness and this becomes quite apparent due to the less than normal use of dialogue, minimal use of accompanying music, controlled camera shots and the muted colour scheme which fills every scene. All of these traits slowly increase as the film continues, and from a visual and audio manner it is great to see the relationship between the woman and Martin develops. The narrative uses a linear flow but it becomes quite a shame that it is broken into noticeable chapters: each chapter begins with a black screen and a word, such as 'marriage'. Beyond hurting the flow of the film these wordings do not exactly portray the tangible events about to occur, but rather abstractly feel as if the director needed to guide the viewer into a particular point of thought in regards to the events about to take place. This guidance erodes at the loneliness theme of the narrative and inevitably makes it more difficult for the viewer to truly appreciate the resonance of story and the characters. An aspect which could have gotten a little extra information for story purposes is in regards to the history of both main characters. By the conclusion, the plot ultimately retains an element of uncertainty as it is difficult to truly gauge the strength of the conclusion on characters who the audience knows almost nothing about.While neither Verbeek nor Rea provide strong acting performances both are adequate in depicting the different means by which people approach a feeling of isolation. Rea's character takes a more traditional approach to the experience whereas Verbeek seems somewhat off-the-wall. This is not a bad thing as this helps to differentiate the characters and make them more unique, but some of her actions can seem rather odd in an almost overly poetic manner.Nothing Personal marks the full-length feature debut for Urszula Antoniak. Her control on scenes really does allow for some lovely landscape imagery, if muted by the colour scheme and harsh weather that surrounds the film, for the viewer to gaze up. It all works in enhancing the reclusiveness of the characters and the visual aids thus synch nicely with the thematic elements being explored. This naturalness is barred by some odd editing problems which occur infrequently.The film contains no violence while language is strong but used rarely. One scene could constitute as sexual in nature but otherwise there is none to speak of, yet breast nudity does feature in two or three scenes.There is an emotionally powerful story to be told within Nothing Personal and this is noted by a wonderful use of minimal music and colour variety, however it never really succeeds as expected. The narrative does a decent job on impressing the experience of loneliness onto the viewer but, it is unfortunate that Verbeek and Rea are unable to find the connection between their respective character and the narrative material, and the story can feel thin when the credits roll. Still, Nothing Personal is not a film which should be easily dismissed.