MovieChat Forums > The Discovery (2017) Discussion > Confusing, but somehow pretty good 7/10

Confusing, but somehow pretty good 7/10


I was prepared to dislike "The Discovery" for several reasons. One was that one of the stars, albeit a part in the background was Jesse Plemins, Todd from "Breaking Bad" who still gives me the creeps, but now he is fat and bloated too. The other was Robert Redford who keeps promising to retire but also keeps showing up in movies that are not that great.

Of course there is also the story which is about a scientists who proves that there is life after death, or something after death. He does not know what, and is set up in a giant rambling mansion of a house with lots of equipment and rooms to try to find out.

"The Discovery" that the "soul" survives death has set off a worldwide pandemic of suicides. They have a suicide clock and millions of miserable, sad or unhappy people are taking their lives all through the movie.

It is an interesting story - a movie that doesn't really move very fast, or even very logically, but the quirky budding relationship between the Jason Segal and the Rooney Mara characters has some odd depth in what seems like a unrealistic movie.

People have expressed dissatisfaction with the ending, and I can understand that, but I didn't think it was so bad because after all how would you even think to tie up such a discovery all in a nice bow that people would understand and be satisfied with. So, all in all it was a though provoking movie that had a fairly strong human element to it.

I would recommend it if this is a theme that interests you.

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I was quite disappointed in this movie, as it had so much potential for such an interesting concept.

1. I'll never understand why hard sci-fi movies so often feel like they need to revolve some guy-girl interaction to center around. There was no need to base the movie so aggressively around the guy-girl given the topic.

2. The concept is awesome, and it's not even religous, although it can be applied as such. I'm even wondering if leaving it as merely detecting the presence was all that was necessary, and not going as far as showing what the person experiences from their vantage point.

3. The main character I felt was trying to be represented as a protagonist, but I don't think he was. His dad did nothing wrong, and people who chose to kill themselves owned their destiny. There was no promise of anything outside of religious faith. The proper way to deal with the situation would be for society to further value human life.

4. I feel like they didn't have to introduce a cult-like aspect to Redford's character, or the people at his compound, at all, and clearly the decision to do so was to simply support the main character as the protagonist.

5. The ending didn't make sense. I understand the obvious connection, but why was he taken to the beach to be given the opportunity to save Isla's son? It just randomly happened with no explanation. It made for interesting coincidence to draw two characters closer, but it didn't make sense as far as a reason why it happened.

6. The remembering thing was introduced like 5 minutes before the end, and then was used as the "big reveal" to end on. It felt like if they were going to propose this concept, it should have been done WAYYYYY earlier in the movie.

Overall, I rate this movie low in execution, high in concept.

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That's fair.

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