MovieChat Forums > The Low Down (2001) Discussion > I can't decide...

I can't decide...

posted 13 years ago by jesscat88
1 reply | jump to latest

...if I liked this movie or not.

The performances were good, but I just wish that there had been a bit more substance. A lot of stuff seemed to come from out of nowhere - like Ruby's behaviour during the party near the end - why was she so familiar with the flatmate, how did their conversation actually end, and why was she so off with Frank afterwards? It's not that it seemed out of character...it was almost like there were details and moments missing.

There were also some wonderful details - Frank's sense of alienation amongst his friends, for example. The fact that all the big, group scenes are chaotic, unfocussed and unclear makes a really good, subtle point about Frank's attitude towards the regular people in his life. His building frustrations with John (who is annoyingly realistic) are also well done - you get a sense of the long-lived friendship between the two that stops Frank from punching John's lights out during his more dickish moments.

I also loved the window paranoia. You couldn't work out if he was actually getting robbed as he headed out with Ruby, or if it was his imagination going into overdrive, but it's an anxiety I recognised all too well.

However, there were also some things I really didn't get and that really hauled me out of the movie. The stills of Frank and Ruby's facial expressions pasted into one of their first conversations for example. Battering up the prop head that they had been working on - I think I missed something there... The biggest thing for me however was the last twenty minutes or so of the film. Watching it felt like wading through treacle, and the lack of resolution at the end left me feeling a bit hollow. I was invested enough in the characters to want more.

[–] LindaPartridge 13 years ago

I watched it last night – I can’t say I was completely crazy about it, some parts of it really annoyed me but I am still thinking about it today so it must have made an impression. I quite liked the meandering storyline and the rambling dialogue – it certainly felt authentic. However, the character that Kate Ashfield played was a little too passive as someone has pointed out in an earlier post – I don’t know any woman who would have tolerated the behaviour of her boyfriend – also there wasn’t much passion between them – they both seem to be slightly disinterested. I kind of wanted to grab her and say, tell that bloke to get lost! She was so pretty and cool and seemed to be well educated, she talked a lot about books – he seemed a bit lost about all of that. The scene in the restaurant after the squash match indicated that. The shower scene (what was that about! – seemed to have no purpose except to show Aidan Gillen in the shower in the nip (not that I’m complaining!) All of the close ups of Aidan Gillen were interesting too, the director seemed to like putting the camera right in his face, why is that, I wonder? – he looked very nice though! Beautiful eyes. I just watched him in something made more recently also, and he has aged a bit, but still looks good though.