Geek On The Mountain

Winter Solstice is a film about a father and his two sons and what they go through after his wife/their mother dies.

This is flat out the worst movie I’ve ever seen. When I rate movies, I can almost always find some redeeming quality in them and give even the worst of them at least a 2 or a 3 (out of 10). This movie, however, is a solid 1.

For starters, there is absolutely no entertainment value in the movie at all. Through the course of the movie, virtually nothing happens. We find out one of the sons wants to move away from home and the other is failing out of school. We also find that, despite it being five years since the death of his wife, the father has not began dating. And how does the movie end? The father has made it around to asking someone out on a date, one son moves away, and the other may have made an effort to pass one class (One of his teachers earlier commented that he sometimes does well, and other times does not, and that when he’ll do which is unpredictable. So his doing well once doesn’t really say much of anything). And it takes ~90 minutes to do all that… I’ve really left out very little.

Of course, a movie doesn’t have to accomplish anything to be good. Perhaps some witty dialog could have saved the film. But alas, there is none. Not only is more or less totally serious throughout, but the dialog is “realistic” as well. One normally assumes that, when watching a movie or TV show, the characters have interactions with each other and generally do things when we’re not watching. All we see on camera are the interesting parts of what happens. Winter Solstice does an excellent job of exposing us to those boring interactions that nearly every other film would skip right past. On top of that, much of the dialog is delivered at a rather slow pace, further drawing out the pain.

But then, this isn’t a movie meant to be entertaining. It has some deeper meaning of expressing the emotions and telling the story of the characters. It’s a kind of art-type-thing. That’s well and good, but this movie appeals to me on an artistic level about the same amount as it does on an entertainment level.

From what I can tell, people who liked this movie tended to connect with it on some level. Some people find it realistic and moving. The slow, awkward dialog acts to enhance the whole thing. While it didn’t hit me on any emotional level, I can at least admit that it is realistic. I think it’s a good depiction of how men deal with things. Unfortunately, I find nothing interesting in it, so the movie is completely empty to me.

If you do see it, it’s entirely possible that you’ll find it interesting on at least some level. On the other hand, don’t be surprised if you’re utterly bored out of your mind.

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