Title: Guest of Honor
MPAA Rating: Not Yet Rated
Director: Atom Egoyan
Starring: David Thewlis, Laysla De Oliverira, Luke Wilson
Runtime: 1 hr 45 mins

What It Is: Veronica (Oliveriria) is approached by a priest (Wilson) on the cusp of her father Jim’s (Thewlis) funeral. They speak of the past in order for the priest to better understand what to say at the wake. Veronica recalls her and Jim’s relationship, how she had lost her mother at a young age, lost her boyfriend to obsession, and ultimately lost her freedom when letting herself go to prison for mysterious reasons, and how Jim continued to be determined to fight for her amongst all the happenings.

What We Think: This film is not the one you think you’re watching within the first five minutes. It ended up feeling quite long with a twisting, winding, if not silly plot pieced together by mechanics and story threads that read as disjointed from each other. The sort of affinity this genre-tackle takes with this sort of “more subtle” melodrama is in the effort to create an emotional connection, albeit an incredibly stiff and manufactured one. The problem with this is that the drama is all the personality the film has to deliver. There is little connection between the flat characters and the audience in what feels nearly like a teleplay. Perhaps it honestly would have been a stronger thematic work if it was on a more extensive platform such as a storycast or mini series (The Sinner, for example, which for some reason felt distantly similar to this work in plot). In basic, the characters take on a lesser-dimension, feeling characterized for the sake of straining as much sappy yet bland entertainment into the story. It’s a strange balance this flick attempts to conquer, in which the lack of relatability is compensated by a random and often dull story that tries too hard to be meaningful in its happenings. The twists and reveals not only felt contrived, but also empty. I couldn’t feel anything for these characters and their questionable choices and red herrings and sprawling if not dwindling arcs and flashbacks. For a film centered around the whimsy yet seriousness of its characters and their humanity, the failure to complete their story with the desired impact makes it indubitably something I would not want to come back to for a second watch.

Our Grade: D-, The first piece of work I would compare this to is 2003’s House of Sand and Fog, another lengthy film that familiarly stands in issues with plot, inconsistency in tone, and the overall attempt to compensate for blank-slate characters. It’s almost as if these sort of movies are made specifically for out-of-touch, fluff-piece critics to get easy pull quotes for the trailers, because I can’t see regular viewers realistically enjoying this. Beside the poor story elements, the visual and musical capacity of the movie doesn’t dissatisfy, nor does the effort on part of the cast. In all honesty, if you’re looking for something that might start a chuckle or will lull you into sleep, maybe this might be the rent for you.