- Directed by Nicolas Roeg
- October 16, 1973
A couple grieving the death of their daughter go to Venice where they encounter two women, one of whom claims to be in contact with their deceased child.
I can’t say I greatly enjoyed Don’t Look Now. I had heard about it here and there over the years spoken of with esteem which caused me to believe that this was going to be something at least entertaining. Instead this movie was just boring and rather tedious.
The story centers on John (Donald Sutherland) and Laura (Julie Christie) Baxter. Recently their daughter drowned behind their English countryside home and they now find themselves in Venice where John is helping to restore an old church. My first issue is they also have a son who is really left out of the narrative once they get to Venice. He is felt rather superfluous to everything. The son is left in England and barely mentioned for most of the rest of the movie. Why even include the character? He was there to separate John and Laura in the finale but that could have been accomplished in any number of ways.
And the rest of the movie is just some weird stuff tossed at the audience. There is the implication that the husband has some psychic powers that he’s ignoring but that part never seems to really go anywhere. John doesn’t even seem to think he has psychic powers though the two sisters Laura meets, Heather (Hilary Mason) and Wendy (Clelia Matania), do believe it.
There was just a lot of nothing here. There was a lot of talking and a lot of weird and none of it really went anywhere. It was weird that did not disturb or even come off as creepy. Don’t Look Now was just long and slow unusual editing. Director Nicolas Roeg tried for surreal and landed on confusing with a touch of dull. Not everything needs a clear explanation but enough needs to be on screen for the audience to be able to infer what is occurring or what something seen means.
Plodding along. That is what the movie does. At a snail’s pace. Scratch that. A snail moves faster. Some judicious editing would have done wonders here. Shorten some scenes. Remove one or two others. There is building up to something, but you can easily make it go on too long and that is often what occurs in this film. They go on too long and interest dissipates.
The worst part is that I was not invested at all in what happened to any of the characters here. The fate of the main characters needs to matter on some level. From the best crafted horror to the hokiest slasher film what happens to your mains needs to be important to the viewer. I cared so little about John and Laura that when the end came I was like “This is finally done!”
Don’t Look Now was implied to me to be much better than it was. It turned out to be just slow and boring and rather dull. I say skip this entirely.
