Very disappointing...

Thanks for the memories!

Awesome Movie

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

"Queen of Earth" is a great film. Based off the other reviews here, I think this film is under appreciated.This film takes a hard look at the complexities and imbalances that occur in long term friendships. As two people get to know each other for longer and longer, facades of politeness and patience slide away as character flaws are exposed. The two women in this story - Catherine and Virginia - have developed a deep understanding of how the other thinks, feels and fears and, for better or for worse, use this to their further their own emotional agendas.Set entirely in a vacation house in the woods, Catherine has come to Virginia for support after her father died and her boyfriend broke up with her - leaving her emotionally shipwrecked and her life in shambles. Virginia is stuck between caring for her overbearing friend and addressing the ways Catherine mistreated and took advantage of her in the past.The two women hurl mean thoughts to each other in the form of hard truths - or at least things that they believe to be true. At first glance, it is surprising to see how such a volatile relationship can be sustained as a friendship. However, as the film progresses, we see the need for each character to have someone in their life that may not care for them but, at the very least, understand and be present for them.The depth of the emotional drama is complemented by the creative camera-work and the beautiful, foreboding soundtrack which elevates this story to something of an emotional thriller. In more ways than one, the building of psychological tension between the women is as exciting as a suspenseful, murder film.I don't want to give anything away, but there are instances in the film where the story disappears into Catherine's delusions and hallucinations that I personally found over the top and not necessary. I think the film was stronger without it. Additionally, this film does not provide any sort of resolution but I feel in that sense this story mirrors life. Very rarely do we have the privilege of closure in complicated relationships but, by consuming art that addresses the subject, we can better understand them.If you are inspired and intrigued by films such as Ingmar Bergman's "Persona", Woody Allen's "Hannah and her Sisters" and the midcentury plays of Tennessee Williams and Eugene O'Neil - all stories about characters who simultaneously love and hate each other, than this film is definitely for you.

Films are made for many purposes and I don't know what this one is about. They say it is a psychological-thriller, but yes, there is some psychology in it, but definitely no thriller, just a boring drama which means a character study material. The entire film was shot in a lake house and occasionally its surrounding area. There is no story in it, just the characters and they're being themselves that narrated in the days basis for a week, but those days were from the random years without a clear picture of what date, month or the year.There is lots of close up shots like it pushes you back from your seat suppose if you are leaning towards the front. The cinematography was what I felt uncomfortable, but overall not bad. I think the actors were good, both Katherine Waterston and Elisabeth Moss, just for this film because I've seen them in the better roles.Low budget and limited cast film, as well as short but not sweet as I anticipated. So I don't think everybody would enjoy it, I don't know who is the target audience, but I'm sure it will reach them who are going to defend it from people like me. Those who are not seen it, but want to, I only advise them to be careful while choosing it.3/10

"Queen of Earth" follows a week's vacation at a summer house between two friends, Catherine (Elisabeth Moss) and Virginia (Katherine Waterston). Catherine, who has recently lost her artist father to suicide, is emotionally numb and fragile, and a rift begins to form when a male neighbor (Patrick Fugit) joins the friends, which propels Catherine into psychological breakdown."Queen of Earth" is a referential throwback to a myriad of feminine psychothrillers of the sixties and seventies, painted in broad streaks of Bergman and Altman, as well as making nods to obscure horror films of that era, including "Carnival of Souls" and "Let's Scare Jessica to Death." Writer/director Alex Ross Perry is clearly a student of these films, and in many ways, "Queen of Earth" seems to be a love letter to those films.The film has a stark visual flair to it, with heavy use of closeups, continuous takes, and photography of the rural woodsy landscape, all of which accentuate atmosphere and tension. The script is thin yet rich in subtext, which provides the actors ample material to really sink their teeth into. Elisabeth Moss's performance is eerie and dynamic, while Waterston's is sincere and understated. As a meditation on the ennui and turmoil of privileged New England Generation Y-ers, the film offers little that's compelling; however, the darker visual elements and nods to the horror genre lend an absorbing and subtly creepy element that throws what could have been a tired retread of "poor little rich girl" into something far darker and nuanced. The conclusion is ambiguous and the lack of "resolution" will no doubt frustrate some, but the film prevails as a portrait of a psychological meltdown in the tradition of the best of them. 8/10.

I went into Queen of the Earth with so much good will. The premise sounds like it has a great deal of potential - a woman's (Elizabeth Moss) father dies and she goes to try and get away from everything in the wake of this and breaking up with her boyfriend to a cabin by a lake that her best friend (Katharine Waterston) has, and from there she starts to lose her mind. I hadn't seen The Color Wheel or Listen up Phillip, the previous Alex Ross Perry films, but I am an admirer of Elizabeth Moss (just last year she was in a little seen but awesome indie movie, The One I Love), and I thought she could pull off a deep and interesting character. The trouble is, the resulting film Queen of the Earth isn't deep or interesting, though it would very much like to be and pretends to be.It paigns me to rag on a film that is trying to be ambitious in the psychological/interior sense. It's not that the world lacks independent film dramas dealing with loss and mental instability, but it's always good to have well made ones that let the audience in to the character's pain and, perhaps, see that person grow. But the core problem with the movie is that it doesn't give enough context for the main character's misery. In a sense the format reminded me of Lars von Trier's Antichrist, only without the hilarious fox or over-the-top antics involving castration: someone loses a loved one, they go off to the middle of the woods with a close friend, and then the bile spews out. And Queen of the Earth is nothing but an experience where characters are loaded with bile to one another scene after scene.Of course a story dealing with grief and loss and mental fractions should be taking itself seriously, of course... but maybe it should also allow a tone that doesn't hit the same ugly sensations. Even in the flashbacks Moss and Waterston's characters are sniping at one another in passive-aggressive or just aggressive ways, and even the (very) few semi-happy moments are tinged with the flavor of dread. After an opening shot where we see Moss crying and in hysterics - and to be fair, it's an amazingly acted and shot scene - it never really loses that tone, and yet we also never get a sense of WHERE and WHO this character was at before all of this; it's all told to us (that she had a father who was reviled, that she is reviled as a "spoiled brat", that she should get over herself, her art, etc).Part of the approach may be due to the low-budget - Perry didn't quite get started with the 'mumblecore' filmmakers, but he's in the same ballpark - and yet there's little actual creativity, or any sense of empathy that the audience can have in the writing, at least from my perspective. Part of the problem too is due to the style, where Perry gets composer Keegan DeWitt to hit the same ominous, horror-movie notes, and it's draining. In scene after scene it's as though we are locked in with one woman, Catherine, who is a head-case and is becoming undone further and further along (the same tone is basically, 'why can't they leave me alone') and she is not that interesting as a miserable character, and Virginia is even worse. There's no arc with either of these people, no sense of growth whether it's up or down (well, I guess Catherine DOES get worse, but you know what I mean, the trajectory is muddled and shallow); that may be part of the point, but it doesn't work in this case.I can see why the film was made, to bring a full atmospheric experience through eerie-grainy 16mm cinematography, and to highlight how, well I guess, society people are people too. But aside from Moss's performance, as she really is trying and going for this full- throttle (she produced too), Queen of the Earth comes off as a miserable, empty time.