Bleed with me

Watching plastic biodegrade. Counting the threads in an entire Egyptian cotton bedding set. Taking daily measurements of the growth of a California redwood. Alphabetizing the soup display at your local grocery store. These are all more interesting and more exciting then this pile of shit. Never have I seen a movie fail in one specific area, but that failure be so comprehensive, so fast, so overwhelming, that any other positive is smothered to death. The almost total lack of score, the bottle episode nature of the movie (it all takes place in and around a cabin in the winter), the claustrophobia of the setting, the cinematography, all of it is effective. But the writing is so fucking terrible, I cannot even describe it. And it isn’t just one facet of the writing, it’s EVERYTHING. The movie makes no effort whatsoever to build to anything at any time; it is firmly, defiantly, and resolutely stuck in first gear from the opening shot to the closing. Miss Daisy on Ambien could move faster than this. The movie is not only unwilling to connect dots, it’s unable to even explain the dots it lays out. Someone will see something and have a reaction, and we see it, and we don’t know why they’re reacting the way they do, because there’s nothing notable about it. There’s a moment where Rowan (main character #1) finds Emily’s photo album. She looks through it and seems taken aback by a photo of Emily as a young girl and her sister. WHY? The movie gives no context for the importance of the picture or Rowan’s reaction. Not then and not later. What little momentum exists in this movie is constantly undercut by dream sequences and hallucinations and blurry shots and other trickery that add up to nothing. But hey, that’s okay, because this movie isn’t sure what the plot even is, so who needs momentum? Why is Rowan weird and off putting? Why are Rowan and Emily even friends? Is Emily cutting Rowan in her sleep and stealing her blood? Is Rowan imagining it and going crazy? Is she delirious from fever? Why is Emily mothering Rowan so much? Why did she invite Rowan to her cabin to accompany herself and her boyfriend? Is Rowan gaslighting Emily? Is Emily gaslighting Rowan? Are they gaslighting each other simultaneously? Yeah, none of that gets answered. Ever. Characters disappear and reappear at random. Events happen with no context and no explanation. There are no answers here, and not in an A24 ambiguous way, but in an unfinished, half baked script way. And then the final writing sun: dialogue and character behavior. I’m convinced this was written by an alien who had human behavior explained to them by a dog. That or it was generated by an AI, but the AI is running off a Commodore 64. Nobody talks like people do, and the relationships between the three people change at the drop of a hat. Emily and Rowan are good but the boyfriend is leery of Rowan. No, now they get along and Emily is suspicious. No, now all three get along. No, now Rowan and the boyfriend are suspicious of Emily. Oh wait, Rowan and the boyfriend are having sex, and Rowan seems possessive of Emily … or the boyfriend … or both … or neither. WHAT IS HAPPENING AND HOW DO I STOP IT?!? This movie is terrible. I couldn’t in good conscience recommend it to anybody, not even as a worst case study for film students. Nobody should have to sit through a movie this infuriating. I wish I hadn’t.