Aaron's Thoughts
On paper a musical with Amanda Seyfried is almost always a guaranteed home run for me. I wanted nothing more than to come out of this loudly proclaiming it’s better than The Brutalist, so I’m a bit bummed that it’s not. The ship musical number will live on in my head forever.
Sort of wish that the film got us closer into the mind of Ann or the mechanics of how everything happened. The whole thing feels so distant from her. Which I get may be the point, so that us as the audience are seeing what her followers saw. But as is, it feels like a Wikipedia page. An extremely beautiful Wikipedia page with lots of craft and beautifully choreographed musical numbers, but still a Wikipedia page at the end of the day. It gains a bit of steam as soon as they get to America, but then loses it again when it rushes through the third act. Makes me wonder if Brady and Mona scripts are always going to have a problem where the first two acts get a little too long to start moving and then once they finally do, the third act has to be rushed. Hope it’s not the case because it’s very clearly they are a talented duo!
