Thursday, October 9, 2008

EIFF: Dakota Skye

Okay so my favourite moment was when a guy asked at the Q&A after the screening "Could you discuss the meaning of the movie's title?" After a brief pause to no doubt confirm he had heard the question correctly, the director replied quite congenially "It is the main character's name. Dakota Skye. So we named the movie 'Dakota Skye'." If the director had added an eye-roll or a "Duh.", it would have made my year (I hate most of the self-absorbed, pretentious fops who ask questions during festival's Q&A sessions. Most of them care less about learning something about the movie, its process or the cast/crew's experience, and are just attempting to come across as more informed or insightful than they really are)

Oh, the movie, though. Yeah, cool premise. A teen has the superhero power of seeing the truth in anything anyone says ... and then she meets a guy who either never lies or can thwart her innate gifts. But which is it? Well, who cares. I liked the idea, and there wasn't anything all that wrong with the movie -- its just the girl was just so gosh darn unlikable. She acted unlikable, and spoke unlikably, and even her narration was unlikable. And for someone who says she's yearning to find an honest person, she's actually more dishonest than anyone in her life (including the fact that she's the one cheating in her relationship). We see the subtitles of truth whenever someone lies -- but if we saw her truth subtitles the movie would be 23 minutes longer. So it isn't that I can't go along with an unlikable liar for the duration of a movie, it's that I don't think this character was supposed to come across as an unlikable liar. And if she was ... well then her superpower was actually ironic hypocrisy.

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