Gripes With Three Oscar Nominated Movies
Aside from a few comedies, I cannot enjoy a movie if the story has unbelievable parts in it. That can occur if it is a movie like Spiderman but it also occurs in serious movies as well. Ridiculous coincidences, people acting in a way that defies belief or whatever. Sometimes though I come upon a movie that doesn’t have this problem.
Slumdog Millionare, The Reader, and The Wrestler all started out fine for me in this regard but then all blew it. (Don’t read further if you haven’t seen them and plan to).
In Slumdog Millionaire, the kid has 10 mil locked up AFTER he gets the girl. There is no way he would risk it for that final question in real life.
In The Reader, Kate Winslet is given a much longer sentence than her co defendents because the prosecutor claims she wrote a letter that proved she was the ringleader. So all she had to do was divulge the fact that she was illiterate to avoid many extra years in jail. The movie would have us believe that she was more interested in avoiding the embarrassment of admitting her illiteracy. Like that would ever happen.
In The Wrestler, which I just saw today we have a similar unbelievable situation as in Slumdog Millionare. He only went back to wrestling after his bypass because he was rejected by the stripper. But before the match she shows up to proclaim her feelings and stop him. I suppose his going on with the show in spite of the danger is not quite as farfetched as the incidents in the other two movies but it still ruined things for me. They could have made the ending different, perhaps by having her show up in the middle of the match.