Anesthesia (2016)

Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Don't listen to the negative reviews

Absolutely the worst movie.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Maybe it's because I am NOT a big fan of Kristen Stewart, but I found this movie to droll and slow. Same Waterston is a wonderful actor and doing what he does best (ala Law and Order) and this is talk. I love movies that have interacting characterizations and tell a story. Sometimes the attempt to tell a story with either connecting or non-connecting people doesn't always work out. It does try to humanize the plight of the average American family plagued with everyday problems, but it was stuff we already know.I found this film convoluted, talky and didn't go where I felt it COULD have gone to make it more interesting. Sorry but it was a sleeper me. I like Tribeca Film festival movies for the most part, but this one just did not do it for me. Sorry

I found this film to be disappointingly predictable and a self- indulgent piece of "entertainment".It would have been more entertaining to watch paint drying - and about as easy to guess the next scene. The characters were all two-dimensional and lacking in any depth. One detail that particularly irritated me was the lecturing manner - and content - of the supposed Columbia University philosophy professor. He addressed his class in a manner that no real lecturer would, speaking in over-written prose found only in bad novels - and poorer made-for-TV films. The subjects matter he seemed to cover was so eclectic and with such a tenuous connection to any school of philosophy that I wondered if the script writer was having a joke at the audience's - or academia's - expense.The concept of one incident linking various disparate individuals, and thus illustrating aspects of life - or in this case New York city - is so over-used that it will now only succeed with a better than average script. Unfortunately, despite the reasonably capable cast, this was a forlorn exercise.

this movie is deep, moving and ignites the brilliant, yet deep sorrow filled questions of what the meaning of life is and how one should choose their own purpose. excellent movie. mediocre reviews i assume were because the critics are forced to actually think and question deeply personal and wider societal issues, instead of brainlessly watching a film. the movie is about a mugging that splinters story lines of every one connected or effected. the movie encompasses broad problems that are unique to each character in a sincere way. The majority will be able to relate to at least one, if not more of the issues portrayed here. everybody is searching for the answers and this is an honest film aiming to get the audience to remember our actions are never kept isolated in this world.

He's not in this film but he could have been. "Anesthesia" reminds me of a serious WA movie, complete with NYC as a character in itself. I am a great fan of most of WA's work and I also really like this movie. As far as films go, it's "deep" raising some of the "big" issues of human suffering and the meaning of life, and it's done really well. One thing that made it compelling, in my opinion, is the casting. The various actors in it make for a great visual variety in terms of race/ethnicity and looks. Everyone is not beautiful looking, yet everyone I found to be very engaging. Another way of saying this is the acting was excellent across the board. For a movie with subject matter that could have wound up seeming pretentious, I think the big issues were handled well. For example, towards the end,when the two teenagers were so delicately having sex for the first time, while the boy's mother was undergoing exploratory surgery, it was an artistic way of showing the "life can't help but go on" theme. Likewise, the ending, in which the Sam Waterston character extends kindness to the street drug addict who then intervenes and gets killed when Sam W. is knifed by another street person, I found to be quite moving. Ultimately we die and some people are bigger a-holes than others, but in the end what we choose to be meaningful matters.