Freedomland

This turned out to be a pretty decent movie. It was bit of a different story than I was expecting it to be based on the previews. That was a good thing though, it means they didn't give to much away in the preview.

The story was pretty tight so it kept moving nicely. The acting was good, which is to be expected with the cast. The interaction between Samuel L. Jackson and Julianne Moore was the key to this whole movie and it was perfect.


Spoilers Ahead!


In the final act of the movie when everything comes together there were two great scenes. One was when Edie Falco's character was trying to get the truth out of Julianne's character. The way she used her own story and desire to basically lul her into breaking was amazing and genius. And the delivery of that had to be perfect to pull it off and it was, from both actresses. I was holding out hope that they were wrong about Julianne's charcater and she held out for awhile against that but she eventually cracked.

And then the scene when she confessed what had really happened. Wow, that was a powerful scene. Julianne nailed that. (There is only one other actress I think could have pulled that off as well.) It was not an easy scene, not just because of the subject but, because she has to do it just right so while you hate her and want to smack her one minute you also feel a tiny bit of sympathy for her. Playing that line between sanity and madness is one of the trickiest things to do and only a handful of people can do it properly.



I went to a matinee showing but it would have been worth full price.