Still trying to figure out what's wrong with this film

I want to watch this movie so badly. They said it was going to be on theaters here on September 8th but it did not happen and I do not know when I will be able to see it. I still can not understand why we were not able to watch this movie here and why IMDB was wrong.

I read the book a long time ago, and I loved it. I am now very anxious because I read all these comments and reviews and have to figure out why some people did not like it at all and some seem to love it. It seems to follow the book very closely, and all the performances were good. Maybe they expected too much?


"...It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing."

[deleted]

i wanted to watch this for Rachel and Alicia but now prefer to read the book.

Haven't read the book. Didn't know anything about the movie going into it. Just saw it at a 2nd run theater:

I give the movie a solid B+. I thought the performances were great, especially Fassbender. 2/3 of the way through, I was ready to give it an A+. However,I thought it stumbled in the final act. Main reasons:

1. In hindsight, the movie's content was always dangerously close to being melodramatic and soapy Lifetime type material. However, I didn't feel like this was the case until it actually crossed that line by presenting "yet another" moral dilemma for a character, which felt really contrived. And in doing so made the previous moral dilemmas and plot developments feel contrived and thus weaker. (Spoiler: The "I'll give the kid back to you after you testify against your husband" moral dilemma is what I'm referring to.)

2. The female lead, Fassbender's wife, disappeared for what felt like at least a half hour. Like this was one of the two characters I was invested in, and then the script couldn't think of anything to do with her.

3. The ending was weak. I'm not sure what the best way to end the movie would've been, but that wasn't it. I felt like the daughter herself at that point wasn't important. The ending should've focused on the couple and how they were able to rebuild and what that looked like. Instead, they killed the wife off, but she had this letter waiting around hoping the daughter shows up... so it was like she learned nothing and didn't grow in any way from the whole ordeal, and neither did he

Everything. It's a total washout. Made me waste 2+ hours of my life. Unforgivable.