I like when film makers try difficult and different things, and a whole movie shot from a single locked down camera position that takes place over thousands of years (though really mostly over about 100) with multiple timelines on screen at once certainly falls into the “difficult & different” camp.
But a movie needs more than a gimmick to work, and this movie does not work. Some reasons it doesn’t:
- Dialogue that no humans would ever say.
- Tom Hanks and Robin Wright are not convincing teenagers, no matter how much CGI you throw at them.
- Startling coincidences and extraordinary luck (what are the odds that before the house was built an indigenous person was buried in that location, and then a road ran through the same location and Benjamin Franklin’s coach got stuck right there, and after the house was built archeologists would find the indigenous person’s remains “just a couple of feet” underground, undisturbed by centuries of road and home construction?)
- “We need a way to show when things are happening- make sure we show the TV a lot!”
- “We’re only going to show exactly what can be seen from this spot- but later we’re going to be able to see through the house sometimes.”
- A score that screams “THIS IS A HEARTFELT SCENE AND YOU SHOULD FEEL EMOTIONS.”
Look- some of it does work, but not much. The final scene works, but it really only does because of the hour and a half that mostly doesn’t work before it. The weirdest thing about it: I think with the right director, this could be a good play. All it would take is some creative projections to show the different time periods, reusing actors as multiple characters, and losing Ben Franklin.