The Neon Bible

A truly wretched movie replete with terrible acting, horrid cinematography, poor characterization, and scene upon scene that goes absolutely nowhere. I don't think I've ever seen a movie that butchered its source material so badly. Besides everything else wrong with it, the titular "Neon Bible", which was in a pivotal scene in the novel this movie is ostensibly based on, doesn't even appear in the movie, unless you count the image during the title sequence.

By quite some distance the weakest film from Terence Davies. It's an incredibly strange experience watching this having seen most of his other films because it plays almost like a pastiche of his style. Maybe it's because Davies up until that point had only made films set in England which were so completely English bursting with nostalgia for his past, but this film just feels so awkward and uncomfortable set in the US as it is. It had its moments though.

It is an admirable piece, but it feels somewhat distant and brittle in its whole, a case of a non-American director not being able to connect to his subject, in this case the second film of British director Terence Davis I've seen, despite his attempt, causing a gulf being the feelings evoked that you should be feeling, undermining the point of the narrative.

A weekday 8pm movie to catch on TV pan-and-scanned

Formally, the film holds a great deal of interest, as Davies' films always do. His use of devices such as smoke or steam, as well as frames within the frames (doors, windows, etc) heightens the sense that the entirety of the film is one person's memory. That said, I had a difficult time connecting with these characters, as the film seems to remain at an uncomfortable distance from them.