Top critical review
1.0 out of 5 starsTerrible, trite, & anti-Semitic -- Yikes
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on July 23, 2021
Old tired story: innocent teen falls in love with older man who turns out to be conniving (yawn). Add some British English into the mix (yawn) and get ready for the dullest time ever. My beef with this movie is that the only main character whose motives are clearly immoral is Jewish. He is a thief, a con-artist who cheats on his wife with countless other women (including family members — yes, insane).
Now, Hollywood is a funny breed. They're all up in arms over social injustice and prejudice, especially these dumb actors, who agree to do a movie with so much anti-semitism in it (we're reminded that the character is Jewish several times). Emma Thompson went to Cambridge and her major was literature. I'd expect her to have better reading/interpretation skills and see what this script was trying to do. But no, instead she goes for it (Why? Was she strapped for cash?).
Shame on everyone involved in this movie. Another good reminder that we shouldn't worship actors. Most are apparently dumb as a bag of hammers. And before anyone thinks otherwise, I'm not Jewish and not a conservative. I'm just not blind to stupidity — whether it comes from one side or another. And sure, it's a book yada yada yada they were being "faithful," but they didn't HAVE to mention that he was Jewish SO many times throughout the movie. This is a movie adaption, and cinema is a completely different medium. Therefore, good film adaptations don't need to be that faithful to the book. All in all, I thought it was an unfortunate artistic choice.
Lastly, Mulligan is as bland as ever — super overrated as always. That scene where she "cries" watching the sex video in Promising Young Woman is one of the worst acting I've seen in recent years lol. Abysmal.
