Truly Dreadful Film

As Good As It Gets

A story that's too fascinating to pass by...

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

I like artsy films for the simple reason that they make me think. And Brownian Movement's point to ponder is, I believe, what sort of mental illness creates such a closed personality as Sandra Huller's character. At least, that's what I think it is. Such a study requires character development and dialogue that leads to discover exactly what makes the lead character tick. Instead of dialogue we are treated to long silences between characters or without characters in empty bedrooms or bathrooms. Whatever dialogue exists is in such basic English or French that it made me wonder if the scriptwriter was fluent in either language.Any action that takes place between the sterile room or scenery shot is similarly sterile. The sex scenes are so devoid of feeling that they can only be classed as porn and not well made porn at that. The only compliment I can pay part 1, where most of the sex takes place, is that it answers a burning question that must be on every movie-goer's mind: Do German actresses have Brazilians? If Sandra Huller is a typical example, apparently not.Not recommended unless you need to experience terminal boredom.

Charlotte rents a secret apartment. She lives with Max and their son Benjamin in Brussels. She's a researcher professor and she takes some of her male patients to the secret apartment to have sex. She encounters one of those men later and violently attacks him. She goes to therapy with Max and she loses her license to practice. Next, they're in India with the new addition of twins but it's not as good as it first appears to be.There is little dialog especially with the large number of sex scenes. It's a quiet movie. My main problem with that is the lack of emotions for much of the movie. Sandra Hüller plays the cold lead character. She never really lets the audience into the character. Nanouk Leopold is the writer/director. In between the sex scenes, this is a character study movie but it doesn't necessary do a good job. There are little snippets of insight but a whole lot of nothing.

Insufferable longueurs that test the patience to breaking point, posing as artiness. Complete failure to supply backstory so that we actually know nothing about the characters while pretending to think about them. Baffling behaviour by a medical doctor --- well, that's understandable enough, considering what they endure to achieve their licence. But that behaviour is never explained, and the character says smugly that to explain "would only make it worse". Since she had sexual intercourse with men selected from her hospital's patients, she loses her licence to practice and she and her man and their children head off to India, where nothing further happens at all. I could not understand why they spoke English, in rather sketchy accents, and why the French in the movie was not subtitled. The whole thing was so anti-audience and so extremely uningratiating that I felt totally uninvolved and not motivated to watch, which is a feeling evidently shared by the vast majority of humanity. How can someone do this to European cinema? How could the Dutch pay for it?

'Brownian Movement' consists of beautiful cinematography in individually slow (if at all) moving, contemplative scenes, but there ís a big picture, with a clear narrative. A female doctor who conducts (unspecified) medical experiments with medicines, rents her own personal 'laboratory' to have sex with a number of male patients she picks out at work. She has an attractive husband, but the men she chooses, she picks for their physical details, such as body hair, pockmarkedness or obesity. In three parts she (1) experiments, but when she meets one the 'guinea pigs' at her husband's workplace she reacts with great fear and anger, (2) she sees a psychiatrist with her husband, is deemed unfit to be a doctor for not recognizing her ethical conduct was wrong and (3) she moves with her family to India for their aftermath.The story seems strange, but maybe we should put that on the 'culprit' here, the woman doctor. Her reaction to accidentally meeting one of the men she had an affair with, is bizarre, but does show how much she had been living inside some sort of bubble up until that moment. Then, the visits to the psychiatrist don't tell us much either, except that, eventually, she is dismissed from her profession for being unethical and not recognizing her mistakes. What if she had never met that man again, I couldn't help but wonder...The role of Charlotte seems a natural progression for Sandra Hüller after the amazing 'job' she did in 'Requiem'. She is again wonderful here, and Dragan Bakema, though mostly playing a supporting (and less intense) role, did fine, too.All in all, I really enjoyed this (arthouse) film. The title, I learned elsewhere, is supposed to have been based on the phenomenon Brownian motion, which you can read all about elsewhere on the net. To me, this could have done with a different title, and I didn't see any need for it being divided up into three parts either; it felt like one organic story about a peculiar woman and her troubles in love and life. Keep it simple if that's what it is, I would say. Maybe I've missed some stuff, or maybe I don't care too much about it... or maybe I'll get more of it a next time around, because I'd like to see this one again sometime. Until then, I won't call it pretentious...A big 8 out of 10.