Better Days

Movie: Better Days
Nominated for: International Feature Film
How I watched: Amazon Rental
When I fell asleep: No, it was a day watch
When it had me: Right from the start
When it lost me: Near the end
What I have to say: 

The movie deals with school bullying and intense pressure to get into a top notch university in China. It doesn't start slowly. We get a death and a mystery right away. I was drawn into the impossible task of studying under heavy stress while living in poverty and then being singled out by the mean kids. There is a satisfying and unlikely connection between misfits that carries the film.

What slowly started to creep in was an unreality to the characters. What early on felt like a very realistic approach to the story became more and more melodramatic as time went on. The mystery that was set up carried me through but I became less invested as the movie felt less grounded in reality.

The third act was really stretched, with several scenes feeling like the same scene and refusing to carry the action forward. I groaned aloud for one scene with no dialogue and at least a dozen cuts back and forth between two crying faces. It's like they just didn't want to end it. The last shot of the movie kind of made no sense to me but by then I was beyond caring.

The creepiest part of the film was a sequence over titles at the end which brags about the Chinese Government's brave and swift response to squash school bullying. It felt like it doth protest too much.