Inconceivable (2017)

To me, this movie is perfection.

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

You can't conceive? Maybe as you are both almost 60? who cast this movie?

I can't believe Nick Cage would reduce himself to this silly soap opera. It's the sort of flick that stay at home mommies like to watch when they're bored senseless. I guess Nick is hard up for cash. And Fay Dunaway needs to hide her head in the sand and disappear. I never did think she could act, but all that plastic surgery makes her hard to look at. She may have a future is B rated monster movies.

When you've seen the title of this 2017 film from Jonathan Baker you may already have seen the cleverest thing about it. "Inconceivable" resembles the 2014 "Left Behind" in being a Nick (Cage) and Nicky (Whelan) show. While "Inconceivable" is certainly a better thriller than "Left Behind" it sees Cage in the role of medico "Brian" rather coasting along, not really having too many lines, and in fact looking more than a little marginalised by 5 females, of which two are young daughters and 3 are adult women who are in various ways (!) their mothers and carers. (Obviously one of them is Angela, Brian's wife, played by Gina Gershon).Given that the three female leads are played by the aforesaid Whelan (who steals the show) and Gershon, as well as Natalie Eva Marie; given that these three bond very closely from the outset (inter alia in a home kept by Brian and his wife that is far more palatial than Buckingham Palace!); given that the 3 range from the good-looking to the downright hot; and given that all three are seen in various states of undress, one would be forgiven for thinking that the makers are leading us in various more or less titillating directions. This is mistake number 1 to make if you're an audience member (male especially), but it's also mistake number 1 from the makers, since the sewer-like mind of the more-experienced filmgoer is likely to be developing rather lustier and more far-reaching plots than this film is ultimately willing and prepared to deliver!How can it not disppoint, in those circumstances? Indeed, when "Inconceivable" stops toying or messing about with us and homes in on what it's actually trying to put across, it transpires that this is mainly a warning against various forms of surrogate motherhood! This is a bit wrong (conceivably even cruel) of the makers, and the strategy at the same time alienates the piece from quite a chunk of its potential audience. Since the film also has upsetting miscarriage issues to deal with, that's a number more who should NOT be watching this film - really! So somehow this is all a bit exploitative, and all the more so as Whelan's portrayal is very sexy but also intended to convey creepy singlemindedness and in fact insane murderousness; and it seems for much of the movie that, having had a tough time before, she is now going to get absolutely everything she wants... and apparently with no police force or FBI out there at all to stop her!!!!! That this is not so is due to a twist in the tale which comes as a bit of a surprise (good), but only because it's eccentrically disconnected with what has gone before (bad). A further example of this kind of "throwaway" or "expendable" content relates to the strand in the film that brings in great actress Faye Dunaway. The years have moved on now to the point where Dunaway can be portrayed as an adult character's mother - in fact that of the Cage's Brian - but her role as prophet of doom suddenly goes into reverse towards the end of the film, and in fact needs to do so as all her warnings come so fully true that her contribution would otherwise look entirely surplus to requirements. Either way, that's a pity!All in all, "Inconceivable" is an indecisive film that has a touch of atmosphere and a measure of watchability about it; but since so much of that is dependent on the Whelan character and its interactions with others, the doting portrayal of her extreme good looks gets rather heavily in the way of any message the film is trying to convey. And since that message is anyway a dubious (even a salaciously harmful and divisive) one, there's a big question mark over several aspects of this thriller. The default position of the old-fashioned, closed-minded, non-desperate, readily child-producing person out there is that surrogacy is kind of weird and wrong and bound to be complicated; and in fact this is the easiest position in the world to take up. Not requiring much effort at all from those in the luxury position of never having to contemplate it. But all other things are not equal, and some people make use of surrogacy as a chance for happiness, to fill a vast void in their lives. While it has to be admitted that things can potentially go wrong with that, why should a film put together such a scare story that will be mainly neutral for most viewers, but particularly hurtful for a small group?

But you couldn't pay me enough to watch this film to the bitter end. And yeah, bitter is the word I would use as a descriptor. Everything, sets, cast, script has an edge of bitterness as in look at us so swanky rich, or look at us pretend we're enjoying these rug rats or look at straight out of central casting snarky mother in law .Basically the plot you've seen done better in other films of this ilk of evil woman killer and nice unsuspecting eventually gobsmacked family who survive, at an immediate gallop, knife wounds and messy caesarians. This one is dressed up in an unbelievable multipel million dollars mansion, pool, all funded by one working doctor and the other one a nervous wreck with a plastic immobile face.Nicolas Cage has moved far beyond his sell by date, he sleepwalks his way through this with a mouth full of marbled dialogue of some kind never sounding like any kind of doctor I've ever encountered. Anywhere.I frankl didn't care what happened to the whole sodden bitter mess.1 out of 10.