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Friday, July 16, 2010

[4.75/10] Ondine (2010)


Ondine (2010)

Directed by Neil Jordan, "Ondine" is a pseudo-fairy tale with solid acting, but very few good moments and lots of nothing in between those good moments. "Ondine" is the story of Syracuse, a fisherman from a small Irish village, who lives alone but makes the most of his time with his daughter from a broken marriage. One day, while working on his boat, Syracuse finds something he didn't expect in his fishing net - a woman. This woman, named Ondine, brings Syracuse luck as his catch of the day gets larger and larger. Her presence in this small community eventually comes to light and things begin to go awry. The story is oddly inert, and without any depth, and the characters are dull and inactive. Sadly, the script also doesn’t work - most of the dialogue is boring, uninteresting and unintelligible. In its final act the film turns from fantasy/romance to melodramatic thriller, and that was film's weakest part, because the conclusion felt very inappropreate and completely out-of-place. Visually though, "Ondine" is spectacularly beautiful, thanks to Christopher Doyle's ("Hero", "In the Mood for Love") gorgeous cinematography and the beautiful scenery of Ireland! The acting is also one of film's strongest assets. Farrell's performance is top-notch and arguably his best to date. Bachleda turns into decent performance, but neither her acting, nor her character were particularly impressive. Alison Barry plays Syracuse's daughter, Annie, with just the right amount of fraility and strength in her first ever film role. Overall, "Ondine" is stunning to look at, yet so lifeless, unemotional, and slow moving, it will put you to sleep. It's 111 minutes of beautiful nothingness!

  • My Rating: 4.75/10
  • Rotten Tomatoes: 68% (6.2)
  • IMDb: 7.0/10

4 comments:

Alex J. Cavanaugh said...

I agree. It was flat with no depth. The story idea was good, but the film was anything but compelling.

George Beremov [Nebular] said...

It really left bad taste in my mouth. So overrated!

Dr Blood said...

I didn't realise that a movie even existed of this. I've always wanted to see it since I read how Audrey Hepburn starred in the stage version. Obviously Audrey Hepburn isn't in this which is probably a great pity. I'm not too keen on Colin Farrell either. :(

George Beremov [Nebular] said...

It was a huge disappointment.. so monotonous and sleepy, it gave me a strange headache. There was nothing intriguing or particularly interesting, except for the beautiful visuals. Colin Farrell was good in this one, I have to admit.