I’ve seen three films recently that I want to recommend.
Equilibrium stars Christian Bale and is a fantastic dystopian film. The storyline is sort of a mixture between We by Yevgeny Zamyatin and The Giver by Lois Lowry (two books I LOVED) and has many film elements of The Matrix. Christian Bale is amazing as always (I’ve been in love with him ever since Empire of the Sun), and the movie also stars Emily Watson, Angus Macfadyen (Robert the Bruce in Braveheart), and, in a small part, Sean Bean. You’ll especially appreciate this if you’ve read either of the books above. I was so pleased that my husband and sons enjoyed a movie that I picked out for them. Warning: there is quite a bit of violence! Rating: A
The Painted Veil stars Naomi Watts, Edward Norton, and Liev Schreiber. Loved this as well. Based on a W. Somerset Maugham book, the story is about a spoiled English girl who finds herself in the middle of a cholera epidemic. Very well done. I can’t recommend this for kids, though. Rating: A-
Away from Her is based on a short story by Alice Munro. Julie Christie is absolutely fantastic in this as a woman suffering from Alzheimer’s. I’ll definitely be reading this as I was confused some about the ending. I can’t say I agreed with some of the choices made here, but I still thought this film very thought-provoking. Rating: B+
If you’ve seen any of these please comment as I’d love to hear your thoughts on them. If you see them based on my recommendation, come back as well!
I saw The Painted Veil and loved it. That Bale film sounds really good; I love We and The Giver as well!
I love that you mentioned Robert the Bruce form Braveherat – I loved him in that. They all sound interesting. I don’t tend to watch a lot of movies.
“Equilibrium” looks interesting. I may check this one out. I love Sean Bean. Does he play a bad guy?
I loved Angus as Robert the Bruce! Sean Bean is not a bad guy, but his part is very small. I wish he would have had a bigger part.
You had me at Angus Macfadyen. He was the best part of Braveheart.
I’ll put Equilibrium on my Netflix queue.
Finally someone else who has seen Away from Her! I really liked that film, it made me cry a little. My husbands grandmother had senile demensia and I know how hard it was on his mum and him when she couldn’t remember things including them.
Equilibrium is great too. The bit with the dog was interesting.
[...] Side note: A few weeks ago I saw the movie Equilibrium starring Christian Bale, and it surely had to be influenced by this novel. If you’re interested in the dystopian genre, it’s a must-see. See my review here. [...]