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Jessica Brown Findlay Shines In The Otherwise Annoying 'Albatross'

Film Rundown:

Genre:

Drama

Parental Rating:

None

Director:

Niall MacCormick

Starring:

Felicity Jones, Jessica Brown Findlay and Sebastian Koch

Runtime:

Our rating:

by The Ology Team .

On Jan 19, 2012

Ugh, This Movie is Stupid

by Benny Gammerman, age 8

I can't stand movies about writers who don't/can't write. Much like preteens who eagerly dispense life advice and grandmothers who curse like teamsters, the Non-Writing Writer is a pure, lazy cinematic invention. Look, I know I'm only 8 (give or take 18 years), but trust me, you either have an idea/assignment or you don't. No one just sits at their desk, staring at a flashing cursor on a blank page. Well, maybe gypsies, but you can't trust those guys.

Albatross's sole enjoyable attribute is the presence of the beautiful and magnetic Jessica Brown Findlay, whom the more worldly of you may recognize as Lady Sybil from ITV's succulent period drama Downton Abbey. Here, she plays Emelia Conan Doyle (yup, those Conan Doyles), an 18-year-old manic pixie dream bitch who turns a dysfunctional family on its head with her delightfully unhinged ways. Emelia takes obvious pleasure in edifying the teenage daughter (Felicity Jones), disobeying the shrewish mother (Julia Ormond), and sleeping with the aforementioned writer's block-addled father (Sebastian Koch). She's quite a handful, this one.

Tone is tricky, this I know. Too little variation begets a stagnant story, while scattershot moods leave an audience scratching its collective head, wondering what exactly they're supposed to feel. Albatross suffers fatally from the latter condition. Adultery, divorce, deceit... these are heavy topics, but Albatross mainly retains the tenor of a farcical romp, only occasionally slamming on the breaks and cuing the heartbreak orchestra. The movie demands to be taken seriously as a coming-of-age tale, but the cavalier attitudes of its characters coupled with the bizarre lack of consequences for their actions completely dilute any and all narrative potency. Expect a serious case of emotional whiplash.

SumOlogy: Jessica Brown Findlay does show her boobs though, and that's pretty cool.

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