“The Discovery” hooks you in with a fantastic and shocking opening scene, one that is so compelling that it grossly misleads you as to what is to come in this boring, emotionless, and utterly sluggish movie. It’s the kind of film that you’ll start to watch with some enthusiasm but then shut it off within the first 15 minutes. It’s obvious the filmmakers think they’ve made some profound work of art, but this movie isn’t nearly as important nor impressive as their boasting would suggest.
When a scientist (Robert Redford) proves the existence of an afterlife, the world’s suicide rate skyrockets. His son (Jason Segel) develops an attraction to a mysterious woman (Rooney Mara) and the pair go to live in his dad’s science-minded mansion. The film plays with time and alternate universes, and leaves too many questions unanswered.
The reason I think I really hated this movie is that it’s so full of itself; so much so that you can practically feel the massive egos of the writer and director leaping off the screen and proceeding to beat the audience over the head.
It’s sloppily directed by Charlie McDowell, a disjointed disarray that reminds me of a rip-off of the far superior “Flatliners,” “Another Earth,” and “Groundhog Day.” After viewing this movie, it’s clear that alternate reality timelines are best left to more competent writers and directors like Brit Marling and Christopher Nolan. The non-cohesive story is maddening (with a twist ending that is a guaranteed frustrating letdown), the writing (by McDowell and Justin Lader) is on a fifth grade level with a lot of ‘telling’ rather than ‘showing,’ and the characters are all kept at a distance, leading to zero emotional connection with any of them. The characters’ motivations are unclear at best, nonsensical at worst. There’s an unbelievable love story between leads Segel and Mara, their chemistry altogether absent.
Instead of taking the time and care to craft an astute, meaningful story about the existence of an afterlife, the screenplay takes the lazy route and dismisses anything and everything remotely interesting. Why not explore the religious and moral implications of such a scientific discovery? Oh, that’s right: it would take far too much work and thought to do so! Not only is the content tired, but the drab, dreary cinematography is also ugly and the movie looks terrible. The same goes for the wildly uneven original score.
This movie made me so angry that I can only compare it to the cinematic equivalent of one massive eye roll.
