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Critic Reviews
"You need to be strapped in and focused for director and co-writer Charlie McDowell’s ambitious, unnerving, slightly loopy and beautifully ambivalent gem, which only tackles the question: How would people react if there was absolute proof of an afterlife?"
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"At the very least, its central mystery keeps you guessing, right up until a final turn that’s nearly as clever as it is convoluted."
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"By concurrently threading the needle of both the hereafter and emotional breakthroughs for our characters, it can make the plot schematics feel too tidy in their construction, but the journey in finding how these elements fit together is never less than engrossing."
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"By turns resoundingly human and regretfully half-baked, the film wears its influences on its sleeve."
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"That world is so well-realized that the film is worth seeing, but it’s a mild letdown given the number of philosophical queries that it raises, only to leave ultimately unexplored. "
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"Conceptually, it’s an ambitious undertaking; but as fascinating and perplexing as it all is, I’m not sure McDowell’s film really achieves its goals."
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"While the film is ambitious, with enough intrigue and uneasy moral quandaries to keep my attention rapt in the end it just doesn’t make the leap to the other side."
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"The story stays intriguing for much of the way, but eventually things cease to make sense."
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"Unfortunately, after its fine start, this brainy slice of provocative speculative fiction slowly but surely loosens its grip on audience involvement rather than increasing it."
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"While the movie overdoes the plot twists and existential musings, The Discovery is a diverting head-trip whose reach far exceeds its grasp."
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"Though The Discovery starts out with a great premise, its mystery dissipates over a somewhat tepid course as the concept ultimately heads in a direction we’ve seen many times before, and depends overmuch on chemistry that fails to materialize between stars Jason Segel and Rooney Mara."
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"Director Charlie McDowell, who co-wrote the film with Justin Lader, sidesteps the material’s more intriguing ideas, ultimately settling for a conventional story about love, loss and second chances. The disappointment comes not in the lack of answers but in the relative absence of audacity in tackling such a trippy concept."
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"Unlike McDowell and Lader’s underrated 2014 comedic thriller “The One I Love” the most disappointing aspect of The Discovery is that it’s something of a bore. And when you find out what “The Discovery” really is you simply don’t care anymore."
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"The Discovery has a fantastic premise but lacks the ambition. imagination or intellect to explore it satisfyingly. Instead, we're left with a gloomy, thinly written emotional drama."
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"The final act is a pineal flooding of baffling explanations and twists. What’s worse is that there is very little drama underpinning it; by this late stage the collected characters are still stuck dredging up their backstories, doing little to propel the narrative forward. "
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"This Charlie McCarthy (“The One I Love”) drama is sci-fi at its cheapest, a Netflix film that relies on location, weather and quiet to set its tone and a very good cast to make it watchable."
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"The entire thing feels like it's happening underwater, sound distorted, movements impeded. A lot happens, but without any urgency inspiring it."
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"An exceptional cast does their damnedest with what they have, but the lines hang dully in the air. It’s like watching a high-school play starring a gaggle of anxious teens."
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"This is peak TV in a feature-film package, a faux-deep, workmanlike script splashed with some strikingly moody sci-fi imagery tailor-made for a YouTube trailer. It aspires to eerie and constantly ends up at belabored and literal."
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