The Childhood of a Leader (2016)

The Worst Film Ever

That was an excellent one.

Sorry, this movie sucks

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

PLOT SPOILER REVIEW...if I understand it.The story is about a precocious, insolent, young American boy Prescott (Tom Sweet), growing up in France as his dad (Liam Cunningham) negotiates the Treaty of Versailles, which many say lead to the second World War. H.L. Mencken claimed the Second World War was fought because we backed the wrong side in the first war.The film is organized as a musical opera, implying there is a conductor over us and history is set whether it is Hitler or Prescott, the wheels are in motion. The dialogue about history "It happened before" shows that things go in cycles and nothing really can stop it.The picture is nearly half in French. It is slow and boring, even the groping parts. The parents gave Prescott far too much freedom, although that is certainly not the case of evil dictators making me question what was the whole point? And the gap between the childhood and the last 8-10 minutes of the film, I would consider more important than Prescott dressing up as a girl, groping his teacher and screaming he doesn't believe in prayer. Yawn.The film has won numerous awards and is critically acclaimed. I think everyone is out of step, but Johnny.Guide: No swearing, sex, or nudity.

Non-story doesn't mean artistically brilliant. When you have a lot of arty looking pictures thrown together, that isn't a film, that's called visual masturbation. Might as well just go to a photography exhibition instead, not a cinema. Not for everyone? Not for anyone either. Maybe that's the whole idea, the intended audience is nobody in particular. It tries to be too clever, high brow or just disappear up its own backside. Shame because there are some good actors involved, or should I say, wasted on this. I know WW1 history and its ramifications, and this film doesn't really say anything about it, more like a pretentious mess that lumbers along for far too long. If anything, the dictators and their underlings all directly participated in the war, which shaped the future of history.

In 1939 Jean Paul Sartre wrote a short story named "Childhood of a Leader", that deals with identity, sexuality and its relation to fascism.Corbet's "loose adaptation" of "Childhood of a Leader" is indeed very loose. All the Freudian and identity elements that formed the core of Sartre's short piece were discarded, and whatever was left ( not much ) was then watered down into a full feature film.You can feel it throughout.Photography and acting are really good. Had this been turned into short film instead, I'm sure my review would've been much different.

Don't be fooled by some decent cinematography and a vague trailer. This movie is a total waste of 2 hours of your life. And $7 dollars which I contributed to this mess. It tries hard and fails harder. Are all Indie films going to be filmed in a few interiors of houses, drag on forever, and then reveal the occasional outdoor big budget scene? No budget is more like it. They just don't have the money to do anything different these days it seems and you'll get it if you sit through this debacle. This movie is a complete and utter failure to grasp and keep any smart audience's attention. If this is the directors/writers debut.....Then congrats on the investment, and don't see that happening much more ongoing. You could have done much more with what you were given. Bad on many many levels.