Open Road Films 110 minutes R
Camera work and editing to show what it is like to be blind is the most enlightening part of this film. Blake Lively is gorgeous as Gina, a woman who is still suffering the psychological as well as physical effects of a car accident that took her eyesight and her parents. Her husband, James, played with intensity by James Clark (everywhere this season in Netflix Mudbound, and Chappaquidick), is attentive and loving. He is needed and we find out, also needy. It’s the difference between a relationship based on need or love.
Living in Bangkok for his business, Gina decides to undergo a risky operation that may or may not restore her eyesight in just one of her eyes where it may be possible to regain sight. She decides to take that chance. Seeing through her eyes before the operation gives great understanding to how frustrating and limiting limited sight can be. It looks like a windshield blurred with rain and worse when it’s dark.
Writer/Director Marc Forster(World War Z, Machine Gun Preacher) with co-writer Sean Conway (Ray Donovan) keep dialogue at a minimum and let cinematographer, Matthias Königsweiser (After the Fall) create the lifestyle this couple has to lead as a result of her being blind. But she’s very aware.
And when the surgery returns her sight, their relationship is affected by what he realizes she is able to do on her own and by what she can now see and understand. Their whole dynamic changes.
The film reveals what is happening at a slow pace and it’s easy to lose interest in what is happening. After she regains her sight, the trip to retrace their honeymoon and meet up with her sister does not provide the weight of emotion you’d expect.
Lively sings two songs for the soundtrack. “Double Dutch,” about playing with her sister in the film, and “In Our Dreams.” Both are nostalgic or just sad showing off the low timber to her voice. Neither stick. But Lively is a multi-talented actress who doesn’t need to sing.
This film is eminently passable. The visuals are interesting when you see what blindness is like from Gina’s point of view. You will have some understanding of what it’s like to be blind. All I see for Lively and Clarke is that there are other films that use their acting talents more effectively.
