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Is this the work of a genius or pure self-indulgence?


As a suitable intro, I’ve been on a minor Haggis binge over the past few days. Crash it seems continues to divide the masses. I personally think it’s close to a perfect film and every time I watch it, it reminds me that life is beautiful. That’s the true genius of this movie, through all the pain you’re reminded of the joy of emotion, no matter what you’re going through. This was then followed by In the Valley of Elah. I suppose most will only see a well-acted, middle of the road drama for this one. For those who served in Iraq (myself included), they will recognize the brilliance of the story. I wept watching this, to this day I still don’t know how he managed to capture the experiences and emotions of those that spent time there quite so accurately. It’s a far more powerful and true depiction than most will ever understand (which I suppose is a good thing).

Anyway, looking for something else to watch from Haggis I stumbled across Third Person. At first I found it slow, then the stories started to capture me. By the end I was left confused and wanting answers.

Like most I suspect, I became lost in the locations. If Liam Neeson and Olivia Wilde were in Paris, then how was Mila Kunis servicing their rooms in a New York hotel? As the final scenes played out and we find Liam and Olivia now in Rome it clicked that all was not as we had been led to first believe. Clearly I need to watch this again in order to start piecing it together as undoubtedly the clues are within the subtext.

Having turned to the discussion page I see there are already a number of theories, most centred on Liam Neeson being the pivotal character, everyone else being a work of fiction (Wilde may or may not have been there in real time – I’m starting to think the timelines were mixed and she was there for part of it, others were based on past events). So sure, I’ll try it again and draw my own conclusions.

So, now to the real question – is this a masterpiece or just over-complicated trickery?

In the pro camp, it’s not one that will be forgotten as soon as the credits roll (as is the case with the majority of Hollywood offerings). I’ll be forced to watch this again and it’s clever enough to have me puzzling over its meaning and writing here on this damn board searching for answers! Is that not the definition of entertainment in itself? Aside from that and purely looking at this as a movie, it was well acted and the characters were interesting.

As to the cons, I can’t help but feel cheated. I remember writing a short story for a school project, I ended it with the classic “He woke up and it had all been a dream.” My teacher (correctly) scorned me for a cheap ending. The same could be said in this example. Also I feel the endings to each thread were deliberately ambiguous so that we can be free to draw our own conclusions. The most obvious example being the Romany-Gypsy with Adrien Brody glancing at the backseat inferring there may have actually been her daughter there, despite our having already established it was a con-job. Often such freedom is a positive, in this case it felt unnecessary and ‘try-hard.’ And if they were really fictional characters and supposed to represent Neeson’s lost son, then what was the intended connection? I’m all for questions being left unanswered, but this feels lazy and a failure to complete the story.

I really can’t decide at this stage if this is a masterpiece that only a handful of people will ever fully understand and love, or if this was a mistake on Haggis’ part, allowing ego to overshadow what was close to being a very powerful film.

Still, I suppose you might argue that in either case, this one was memorable…


Abashed the Devil stood and felt how awful goodness is.

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