Voxitype Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

Robert Joyner The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

Sameer Callahan It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

Payno I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

jackcwelch23 The great music score, cinematography and acting makes it good, if not great. Great is tough to reach, and much like the balloon in the story it goes too high and slips out of our grasp. Ian Mcewan has written excellent novels, Atonement being a highlight, but this one just tries to achieve too much and doesn't have the meat in the characters to back it up. However, it does make you think, and sometimes squirm with its observations and insights. I saw this as more an existentialist drama than a thriller, though the Hollywood crazy stalker plot point was probably enlarged to keep it entertaining, but it was the quieter and more introspective moments that caught my interest. Daniel Craig does a terrific job of playing a man obsessed with looking for a seemingly impossible to find answer to the mysteries of the randomness of life and death. Rhys Ifans plays the truly unique character and his creepy viewpoint makes you shift in your seat. It's consistently engaging but never a masterpiece, it's takes the loud and angry showdown rather than the quiet thinking that made it work to start. Will still make you never look at a hot air balloon the same way again.

maxcobain Having massively enjoyed Ian McEwan's original, I decided to watch the film adaptation, and was thoroughly disappointed. Roger Michell's decision to leave out two of the best scenes in the book, and to largely alter the ending, left me feeling cheated. Parry's assassination attempt on Joe's life in the novel is hugely important in building suspense to the final scene, and Joe's purchase of a gun injected some humour into an otherwise very bleak plot. Missing these two scenes, and curtailing perhaps the most important scene, the balloon accident, which takes up over a chapter in the novel, to a matter of minutes, made some of the later incidents unbelievable, as it did not seem convincing that Joe would be so traumatised by something portrayed as being so fleeting. While some of the acting (Rhys Ifans) redeemed the film to an extent, it still remained unsatisfying. To anyone who did not enjoy the film, I would still recommend that they read the novel, as it is hugely enjoyable, very well written, and most importantly, a very different experience from the film.

rowmorg I saw the Jed figure as existing in Joe's imagination, welling up from his unconscious mind to haunt him. Yes, Jed was at the triggering event but he haunts Joe without reference to anyone else, and challenges him on the most difficult subject for many English intellectuals: love for thy neighbour. Joe dismisses love publicly in his lectures and privately to friends: according to him it's just "biology". Naturally, this conviction makes him unaware of insulting his live-in lover. He is trapped inside his inability to love. Jed's professed love makes Joe extremely uncomfortable, and he uses all sorts of evasions to escape it. This passage of the film, roughly the first half, was rivetingly significant to me. It is dealing with a central English issue. As the plot developed and Jed emerged from the shadows into Joe's life I thought the film lost its way a little. Joe never confronted his inability to love, and Claire left him. The symbolic representation of this disaster was brilliantly theatrical, but raised some difficult issues of plot resolution that were uncertainly handled. To call this picture a stalker film is like saying Hamlet is about mental health: the more you see the stalker and the less a haunting, the less the film will entertain and challenge you.

sophie_so_good The film starts on a hillside where a couple begin to have a picnic, but it quickly turns into a nightmare as a hot air balloon sails past, clearly in trouble. Despite the efforts of Joe, the protagonist, and others in the area, a man dies. This begins to affect Joe badly, especially as it seems that one of those who tried to help with the balloon, Jed, has now developed an obsession with Joe. All in all, problems are piling up! Well, to be quite honest, particularly in comparison with Atonement which did the novel perfect justice, this film completely ruined the book. What was subtle and ambiguous, has here the subtlety of a man smashing up another man's dingy flat. It all just worked so much better when Jed was a well-off liberal, rather than a man who seems tantamount to being a vagrant, when Claire was a poetry enthusiast, when the audience was actually left in doubt, like Claire, about the state of Joe's mental health. Here, it is virtually impossible to sympathise with Claire: isn't it obvious that Jed is following Joe around, singing 'God only knows'? That poor man: what is he still doing with someone who so clearly does not understand him! When reading the pages, I flew smoothly through the pages, feeling shocked, anticipating, interested, while the film just left me feeling vaguely sick. To say that it made for difficult watching is an understatement. I never want to see it again. In fact, I have taped over it. I could easily, however, read the book again.