Title: Antiquities
Rating: NR
Director: Daniel Campbell
Starring: Andrew J. West, Ashley Greene, Michaela Watkins
Runtime: 1 hr 33 mins

What It Is: Walt moves to his deceased alcoholic dad’s hometown in order to get a better understanding of his parent. Upon living with his caring aunt and uncle, he gets hired at an antiques shop containing a league of quirky or troubled coworkers. Walt comes to learn that his father was well known. He visits a therapist with a therapy parrot that tends to hinder more than help and begins dating Ellie (Greene), a playful woman who also just recently suffered a loss.

What We Think: I’m not a Hallmark person. Thus–I honestly, personally did not like this movie. I’ll be upfront with that. Nothing offensive about it. It simply shares a lot of problems that a lot of other movies like it have. It’s cliché. It’s boring. The lead character, our “everyman,” is not so much the subject as he is a silent vehicle that for some reason gives all the other characters reason to spill their life stories, quirks, and troubles in writing that lacks interesting plot points and originality. It feels a lot like a bad visual novel. Something the writing and story doesn’t lack is the apparent love of serving bland exposition for character that are caricatures. They’re not tropes so much as blown up versions of real people. Not only are they not-believable (‘they’, referring to the ensemble cast involving the employees of an entire store), but there’s nothing interesting about them. Their ‘quirks’ tend to translate more as ‘annoyances,’ which is obviously a huge issue since this flick posts up its focus on these characters. The “main character” barely even has any dialogue in proportion to the extraneous’ apparently important, petty problems. The plot mechanics are cliché, the arcs are cliché, the story is predictable. It’s that story about a person returning to a source or place having to do with (INSERT DEAD/MISSING PERSON HERE) and tries to learn about them while finding themselves while trying to win over the heart of (INSERT MANIC PIXIE CHARACTER HERE).

Our Grade: D+, It just wasn’t entertaining nor profound, as the movie intended it to be. The acting was fine, considering the script the actors were given. There were some (wider) shots that looked nice and had good composition. Otherwise, it’s a film that tries to paint its subjects in an interesting light but ends up leaving you dry as bone with no moments to reflect on.