Meadowland

October. 16,2015      R
Rating:
5.8
Trailer Synopsis Cast

In the hazy aftermath of an unimaginable loss, Sarah and Phil come unhinged, recklessly ignoring the repercussions. Phil starts to lose sight of his morals as Sarah puts herself in increasingly dangerous situations, falling deeper into her own fever dream.

Olivia Wilde as  Sarah
Luke Wilson as  Phil
Elisabeth Moss as  Shannon
Kevin Corrigan as  Joe
Juno Temple as  Mackenzie
John Leguizamo as  Pete
Merritt Wever as  Kelly
Giovanni Ribisi as  Tim
Ty Simpkins as  Adam
Kid Cudi as  Jason

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Reviews

Colibel
2015/10/16

Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

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Livestonth
2015/10/17

I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

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Keeley Coleman
2015/10/18

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

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Allison Davies
2015/10/19

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

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Gordon-11
2015/10/20

This film tells the story of a married couple, whose young son disappeared in a petrol station, right under their noses. They react and grief in very different ways.The name "Meadowland" doesn't reveal anything away, so the plot remains a secret to be revealed. As the plot unfolds, the vastly diverging journeys of the two adults become very gripping and engaging. What they have to go through is devastating, and I do feel for them. The mother's denial and maladaptive coping is so heart wrenchingly played by Olivia Wilde. She is the true star of the film. The ending is very effective and communicates without words. I'm moved by this story.

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willcarson4358
2015/10/21

Meadowlands is outstanding on many levels. It had a risk of being unbalanced and overly melodramatic or otherwise missing the point of the reality of what the film -through the writer- intended to convey which was the story of people who do go through this reality. While it had flaws if you looked hard for them, what stood out was what could be attributed to the direction, sound score, cinematic filming, and balanced overall presentation of the story. The actors all did what really talented actors can do. It was a very well done and worth seeing film. (Well, need more lines to submit review.) Regarding two things worth mentioning, The camera work was with a very fast lens and the ending scene was outstanding in how it brought the story to a conclusion.

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whatithinkis
2015/10/22

This film is a good reminder for me to not follow film ratings alone as an indicator of quality when deciding whether or not to watch something.I'd put this in my Netflix queue and when it came and I sat down to watch I was dismayed by early occurrences. Surely I hadn't decided to order this . . . this genre . . .I visited the critiques here, was discouraged by the 5.2 rating but trusted the intelligence I encountered here in the reviews and went back and saw that, yes, this IS a good film.The editing . . . the single shot of Phil where we see for the first time, on the left side of the screen his attire and suddenly know his profession, and at the same time on the right side of the screen, reflected in the car's windshield, what is on the dashboard. In a second, an instant, we know so much more about Phil.The music is just right and enhances each mood.It's a well crafted film.It is very sad.And it is very good.

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Turfseer
2015/10/23

"Meadowland" is a film by first-time director Reed Morano, a cinematographer by trade, responsible in part for such notable indies as "Frozen River." Morano has fashioned a deeply atmospheric tale from a screenplay by first time feature writer, Chris Rossi, chronicling the downward spiral of a husband and wife whose child is kidnapped by a pedophile (similar to the true-life Etan Patz case). The story begins in a harrowing scene where the couple stops at a gas station in upstate New York with their young son in the back seat. The kid goes to the bathroom and doesn't come out—when the father opens the door, he discovers his son has vanished. We then flash forward a year later and the child is still missing and the parents, Sarah and Phil (played most intensely and convincingly by Oliva Wilde and Luke Wilson), are coping from the fallout of the overwhelming tragedy in their lives.The great strength of the film (and perhaps also its greatest weakness), is that the focus is on the internal arcs of the principals (as opposed to the conflict between the two). When we first meet Sarah, an elementary school teacher, she's on lithium and has convinced herself that her son is still alive. Phil, a NYC police officer, castigates his wife for denying reality (as it's becoming more apparent, due to a police investigation of a pedophile under surveillance upstate who may be implicated in the abduction, that the little boy is never coming home).In one of the strongest scenes in the film, Sarah goes looking for an animal cracker that her son was eating on the day he disappeared, and finds it wedged in a crack in the back seat of their car. Attempting to reconnect with her son in any way, she ravenously wolfs the cracker down, satiating herself for a moment despite the grief that never goes away.The plot eventually focuses on Sarah's obsession with Adam, a young student at her school, who has Asperger's Syndrome. The child is treated poorly by her foster parents—Sarah follows the mother in one scene and helps her out with money after she's unable to pay for groceries at a convenience store. I'm not exactly sure where that plot strand was leading—later on, after throwing out her medications, Sarah has a manic episode where she ends up having sex with the boy's father (again I suppose, indicative of her downward spiral). Meanwhile Phil appears at first to getting himself together by attending a support group for parents of murdered children. But like Sarah, he is not immune to the deleterious effects of the tragedy that has impinged upon his life. In a subtle scene, he kicks over a roadside memorial to a deceased father—his way of "coping" is lashing out (as opposed to Sarah's self-destructiveness). Later Phil inappropriately provides one of his fellow support group members with the address of the drunken driver who killed his daughter. It's obvious that Phil has lost his moral compass despite the fact that he's supposed to uphold the law as a law enforcement officer (a public servant).Morano's camera work as well as her direction prove that she's an extremely talented filmmaker to be reckoned with in the future. Meadowland's problem is Rossi's uneven script which lacks a great deal of conflict and rising tension. Instead, the focus is on just how low these characters can sink as they cope with the immediate reality of their missing child. Little is added by a subplot involving a visit by Phil's unstable brother Tim, who Sarah and Phil put up in their apartment, while he is attempting to get his life together. I won't reveal the ending entirely but suffice it to say there is a measure of redemption for Sarah involving an elephant, a class of mammal that Adam, the young Asperger's child, has shown great affection for earlier on (Sarah's self-obsession at the denouement with her concomitant lack of attention to Adam, remains a disturbing scene). Phil perhaps gains his measure of redemption when the police investigation into their child's disappearance, is resolved. Meadowland is primarily recommended for the intense, tragic atmosphere it invokes. The lack of a true, discernible plot and focus exclusively on the principals' internal arcs, are its Achilles heels.

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