 | MOVIE DETAILS • Name: The Crescent • Year: 2017 • Country: Canada • Director: Seth A. Smith • Main cast: Britt Loder, Danika Vandersteen, Woodrow Graves • Runtime: 99 minutes • Production company: Cut Off Tail • TRAILER
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Visual artist Seth A. Smith has chosen for his second feature film to tell a story about life and death, dealing with the fact, to remain with the alive ones and always be surrounded by the dead ones. The official plot of the film reads “after an unexpected death in the family, a mother and son struggle to find spiritual healing at a beachfront summer home”. It is a simple start point for a simple movie. But is it such a simple one? Because The Crescent is designed to be full of contrasts. The contrasts of colors of the art the character of the mother is creating, the contrast about that young but adult mother with her very young son, the contrast between the people you want to trust in and the ones that you decide to keep away…
The tone of the movie resides in a mix between pensative, quotidian and experimental. And although at some points of the film there are some creatures or practical effects, the overall feeling of The Crescent is very minimal. The tempo is also very slow, which makes this movie to be a rough one to watch if you are a lover of franticness and immediate action. And I think here is where I never could get connected with the movie. It is not that I only want to watch easy action films or anything like that, I can enjoy a slow contemplative movie if I feel it is bringing some interesting something to feed my brain. And sadly this is something I couldn’t find with this movie. The final twist and the overall meaning of The Crescent are not that bad, it is actually a quite smart move. But I had a hard time witnessing the whole package.
A feeling of amateurism is surrounding the entire picture. Again, nothing against amateur or low budget films, on the contrary. But I just couldn’t get over the idea that the filmmakers wanted to reach a level and didn’t know how to. They got lost in a story that is not developing fluidly and therefore brings a sensation of tedium to the watcher. And notice that this is my personal point of view.
To sum it all up, The Crescent is a small and simple movie with high expectations and a powerful background message. But in my opinion, the filmmakers didn’t manage to extract all its potential and the final result is a deceive. I am a sucker for a good story, and I think they sucked at it.
RATE: 3/10
IMDB URL: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt6044156
