Advantageous (2015)

How sad is this?

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

The movie feels like a 90m short film stretched out, yet still incomplete. The movie is about a woman, Gwen, who is "too old" for her job as a spokesperson for a biomedical company and many women in general are being pushed out of the workforce. Her company has a solution but she has to decide how far she will go, not only for herself but her young, but bright and talented, daughter. There is a current of a greater world behind the scenes that are hinted at yet we only see things from Gwen's perspective, so therefore the world we see is very narrow. There are things going on in the background of this near-future New York where there is civil unrest and hints of other people going to extremes hoping to make a change, or trying to adapt or react to this 'new world'. However, even though these are there, they play literally no part in this world so they may have well been cut. The core story feels like it would have made for an excellent short film, but as a full film it feels very lacking. There is little going on but what you see at face value, and there are many long silences that add little. The end has a 'twist' but I had already suspected it long before it came. Almost all of the choices made during the film are very counter intuitive. Gwen, the main character, makes a choice so drastic that it completely changes how the world sees her, to such a degree I was wondering what the she/the director they were thinking! Especially as she had "choices". Her bosses at her company also make certain decisions that seem to sabotage what their end-goal was. Even her family and friends act in strange, unrealistic ways. Speaking of her family, there is a quick backstory that is touched upon between herself and her parents, but it too was completely unnecessary and pointless as we are never given any information regarding it. While I realize the film was trying to show her isolation and inability to turn to anyone else for help, it still falls flat.In the end, the movie feels like it could have dropped these dangling thread sub-plots and had a much stronger short-film than this drawn out affair. I love good sci-fi, ranging from cerebral to action-packed but this was a melodrama with sci-fi themes used in order to attempt to tackle the idea of identity, sacrifice, and choice. If you want a female-centric melodrama with sci-fi undertones questioning the identity of 'self' and how far a mother would go for her childs future, this might be right up your alley. It has a good mother-daughter relationship at the center of the story with decent acting, though a bit morose and and joyless. The moments of mother-daughter time were honestly the better part of this film, but they dont really go well in the sci-fi dystopia they were trying to build.

Advantageous boldly confronts the obsession with female youth, in a world where aging women have little to no job opportunities as the economy is built upon the idea that young female beauty is the standard, thus producing income for corporations, and that aging beauty is worthless, thus leading aging women without means to support themselves. How intelligent of Jennifer Phang to confront Hollywood and movie critics on these very issues they continue to perpetuate. A woman's heart-wrenching but ultimately beautiful sacrifice for her daughter is enough to provide hope in a world of unrealistic beauty standards and the continued sexualization of young women. I eagerly await what Jennifer Phang has in store for us next.

What a pleasant surprise this film was. While trying not to get too much into detail, as not to spoil any of the intricacies of the movie, I'll say that while this is in the realm of sci-fi, the movie has much more on it's mind than merely that. It conveys as much in it's beautiful nuances and a refreshing subtlety that is sadly missing from many newer films of it's ilk. The film is also wonderfully acted across the board. So that doesn't hurt.This mini-review was inspired by a haiku that I wrote on twitter, which I shall also include here for the sake of posterity (if for nothing else) Also in revised form as the original was sadly incorrectly in 5 7 6Character driven Well crafted slice of sci-fi Deliberate pace

This film was (mostly) an unexpected pleasure. Ran across this title when i was trying to escape from another bad night with True Detective 2. This movie did the trick. Not trying to compare the two experiences, but... The writing here is quite accomplished. And that leads to some terrific performances. The polar opposite to that other thing.The protagonist is an employee of a tech company in a near future where a woman in her 30's is past her sell-by date. And if you think the choices are limited for women in the present, in this future, they're even more dire. So, for a single mother with a a young daughter, the walls are closing in, fast. But the same company that's about to dump her also offers her an alternative. The choice is far more complicated that just selling your soul. That devil's bargain may actually be an improvement over the choice offered here. At least with the devil you still get to be you, for while. My main criticism is the film left too many ends unexplored, unexplained. Could have gone on for a bit more. I will have to watch it again to see if they answered any of those questions and i missed it.