Bloomington (2010)

Very well executed

Surprisingly incoherent and boring

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

I really wanted to like this film, but I saw no chemistry between the lead characters at all. The character of Jackie exhibited no real emotional response to her professor, and the professor was totally casual throughout the film. I expected sparks to fly. You have a perfect setup, a great premise for the film with lots of genuine opportunity for conflict. Instead, it was as exciting as a paint by numbers picture. I really was disappointed that there was no real passion exhibited between any of the characters. Even the fights were subdued and drab. As for the sex, if you are going to imply the sex, rather than show it(which is alright with me), at least make it implied passion. The characters looked like they were just going through the motions.

I must admit that I have probably never seen worse film before. The whole plot and scenes seem to be so disconnected, it is impossible to get the clue how one thing cause another. The relationship between main characters is out of nowhere. It seems that creators wanted to put as much as possible into the movie and we get sloppy story like overcooked pasta. Nothing fits, emotions are non-existent and the kid looks like female Haley Joel Osment. I don't understand why an adult, educated woman instead of "have a conversation" has decided to make the girl jealous. There are many things that don't fit here and many scenes are just few seconds long without going deeper into emotions and the whole relation that should be built on.

Though well intentioned and unobjectionable, Bloomington is undone by a fatal lack of believable conflict. For the most part, this film is as emotionally placid as an inland sea with flashes of hurt feelings and argument jammed in out of nowhere. I didn't sit through the movie just waiting for it to be over. My thoughts were more like "Okay, where is this thing going?" Followed after a long while by "Wait…that's where it was going?" There are also several stray threads scattered through the story, making it appear as though these filmmakers were never able to take all the ideas in their heads and fully transfer them to the screen. Such an amateurish quality to the storytelling prevents it from fully engaging the viewer, but the very appealing presence of Allison McAtee and an overall feeling of earnest goodwill also keeps it from ever being annoying.Jackie (Sarah Stouffer) is a former child star who's gone away to college. She almost immediately hooks up with the scariest professor on campus, Catherine Stark (Allison McAtee). Though she makes an imperious first impression, Stark turns out to be a solicitous lover and an almost motherly companion to Jackie and they blow through flirting to full blown relationship as quickly as The Flash dons the costume he keeps compressed in his ring. Then Jackie gets an offer to be the lead in a movie version of her old series, which results in Stark turning into a rather large bitch. Jackie doesn't return the favor, but does get all bitchy with her seemingly inoffensive mother. Then Jackie and Stark make up but realize they can't be together. Yeah, that's how it ends.I don't know if writer/director Fernanda Cordoso was unconsciously working out any mother issues with this script, but the way Jackie's relationships with Stark and with her mother flip from sweetness and light to nasty and dark neither fit nor are justified by what's going on in the film. She could merely have realized that her greeting card of a screenplay needed some bite. If that's the case, it comes off like it was all tossed in during a last minute rewrite.Bloomington also has an awful lot of makeout scenes without managing to have one legitimate sex scene. There are a couple of times where it's indicated that someone is doing something below the waist which the viewer can't see, but that's about it. It's odd because the lack of conflict in the story would fit if this were a classy attempt at erotica. The lack of any bare flesh or sensual writhing therefore only draws attention to the paucity of plot.Though Sarah Stouffer is technically playing the main character, Alison McAtee owns this motion picture. Her performance is intelligent, tender and very sexy. Unfortunately, that does make it all the more noticeable when Stark gets pounded down with the Almighty Plot Hammer in the last half of the movie. I can't imagine anyone comes away from Bloomington caring more about Jackie than they do about Stark. And the young woman/older woman lesbian dynamic here is distinctly different from what you'd get with a young woman/older man relationship, giving you something to focus on when the narrative flags.This is a generic coming of age romance. There's been umpteen heterosexual versions of this, so I guess there should be room for a homosexual rendition. Like the straight stuff, though, after you've seen one of these you never really need to watch another.

It's a simple story, it reminded me of the movie "High Art" in the way the two characters get involved. Excellent chemistry between Allison McAtee and Sarah Stouffer. It's not a work of art,you need to see it without high expectations. There are several raccord issues, the photography it's not the best but I know they filmed in digital and with a reduced budget so I understand that.To sum up, when we watch a movie like "Bloomington" we have to identify it as a low budget movie with a team that is still learning, but they are in the right path.For all the team involved in this movie I just want to say: Your effort was worthwhile and ... I don't like the ending!! LOL