Speak (2004)

Sorry, this movie sucks

Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

The first must-see film of the year.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

Yes, I did watched this because of Kristen Stewart.This story is heartbreaking. It tells about a teenage girl, Melinda Sordino who is quiet and weird. But she wasn't like that to begin with. There's a reason for why she behaved like that.Kristen Stewart is perfect for the role. She can do great if she choose the right movie for her. And this movie is one of her right choices.I think everyone can relate to the story of withdrawal and rejection, relationship with family and friends, and how expressing yourself can set you free.I almost cry at the end but no tears so I gave a 9.

Spoilers as I try to write about some of the gory plot details. Words about rape, then words about guilt often not being a useful concept. Paradox, ignoring aspects alluded to by guilt as a recipe for a crime wave and would be called psycho? I tend to consider this feature alongside such as Mysterious Skin (2004) and Odd Girl Out (2005) and Our Guys: Outrage At Glen Ridge (1999) and Welcome To The Dollhouse (1995). Dollhouse is the greatest. Some find these to be difficult and painful to watch, but worthwhile even if they are only watched the once. I find them difficult to write reviews or comments on as I find it way too easy to mess myself up due to these being difficult to write honestly and clearly about. I find that what I write needs a lot of thought, especially about topics such as this, and my message board comments tend to be fast responses that are occasionally inept partial truths. I find Mysterious Skin to be not much of a problem as I do not find it personally threatening the way that I experience Odd Girl Out, which at 10th April 2012 I have not been able to watch fully. Too scary. That is supposed to be about USA schools, not the UK, and I do not remember my 1950's and 60's schooldays as such, but lowly work in higher education, yes, very much so. Mental health treatment by what the UK calls Social Services, ditto. My experience of health services is of me being wrecked and Odd Girl Out reminds me of a chunk of that. For me, Odd Girl – Alexa Vega – Melinda Sordino, who is easy to lead, is on the receiving end of genuine ritual Satanic abuse. Some in the UK might know something about what it feels like to be at the receiving end of of variations of that. There are local elections here, soon, and I remind myself that all political factions can get even worse, I definitely feel a need for a change, but …. Our Guys: Outrage At Glen Ridge and Welcome To The Dollhouse, I find these to be way relevant to my understanding of Speak, but I get tangled by the difficulties in showing how these show guilt to be an unhelpful concept. At least Dollhouse can speak for itself. I find the commentary track on my Speak DVD scary as the writer and director both seemed to consider guilt as real. The Bad Guy, and he is smelly bad, seemed to be understood to have free will, ditto the Tangled Girl who Hero met early on in the school bus, ditto Hero Girl. My experience is that guilt and crime and punishment in reality is a recipe for real world equivalents to fester and never be healed. Big babies getting the sort of nurturing that washes in the problem, deeper and deeper. So, if good people accepted that these did not have free will then I believe that the washing would get even worse. I have not got much faith in people. Speak is one of several KS features to show faith in artists, people with expertise in showing their personal experience of reality. For me, reality is the stage on which the puppet masters show their wares, superficial. Many show no guilt when dealing with the dispossessed. Psycho world. * Bad Guy met Hero when he was around age 17. He had a positive relationship with her for many, many minutes, then he took her aside and raped her. During the following year of school he occasionally gave Hero big trouble without even realising that he was being vicious. At the end of the year he was passé, forever unless he gets appropriate helps. Which is unlikely to happen. I assume that his age 17 experience is just a continuation of an escalation.Meantime, Hero learnt how to grow out of some of the chains in her psyche. Meantime, Tangled Girl continued to drift, eventually to become some form of passé unless she gets appropriate helps . Which is unlikely to happen. I like Donnie Darko, among the reasons is that it is clear about the helpfulness of the helps that Tangled and Bad will have received. Speak is good for showing the helps that Hero receives. Hero is chained too, yes, but has more appropriate degrees of freedom for being able to approach these realities in a rational way, Hero's rationality is not solidly chained against this. So, now there is Submarine (2010), a tale of a Welsh guy who is one of the Heathers of his school. Yasmin Paige as a Tangled Bad in a story that is not difficult or painful to watch. It looks to Welcome To The Dollhouse, but it is also close to some aspects of Speak. It blends well with Yasmin's role in True, True, Lie (2006). Also with Lymelife (2008), an Emma Roberts. Submarine suggests that how people deal with dogs can be a relevant factor. * An additional detail in the director and writer commentary is one of the new actresses in Speak being a contributor to IMDb. Megan Pillar as Ivy, Megan_ in the MB. I can only find traces of her in Message Board stuff relating to the release of Speak, so she might have quit or moved to a different user name.

I just watched the movie and it compelled me to write my first review.It itself says much about the movie.This is my 4th movie of Kristen Stewart and i should say she's gonna be the leading lady of the Hollywood in few years. The movie is about a teen who was assaulted in a party and kept the fact with her, leading her into a state of loneliness and lack of confidence to share her views with anyone.The subject was very hard to be dealt with but credit should be given to the director Jessica sharzer and of course to Kristen Stewart for a performance that will be remembered throughout her career.Kristen did a fantabulous portrayal of a traumatized teen with an ease.Its very difficult to let the other person know your feelings when you have few words to say but Kristen's expressions and body language did it all effortlessly. The direction of the movie is superb dealing more with expressions and behavior than dialogs. Even dealing with such a subject the movie is engrossing and does not let you go anywhere.I highly recommend this movie to every high school guys/gals and to everyone in their 20s or 30s.

It might be the effect of watching a lot of bad films in a row but the truth remains: sometimes there just comes a great movie. Jesssica Sharzer's "Speak" is one of those pictures that gets everything right. Like "Thirteen" or "The virgin suicides", it chooses characters, explores their environment and takes care of covering every aspect of a heartbreaking story. A heartbreaking story told, shot with respect is not the only thing these films have in common. The most important characters are girls, and the writer/directors are women. This can't be a coincidence. However, what changes is the point of view. Where "The virgin suicides" was seen through the eyes of boys and "Thirteen" was a whole new (extreme at times) experience for a high school girl, "Speak" takes a step back. It's a humbler movie; neither entirely poetic nor filled with the emotions its main character is desperate to express.Melinda (Kristen Stewart) has done something terrible and is starting the new school year without friends. She wants her friends back, but something else happened and it's making very difficult for her to walk calmly around the hallways. There is a reconstruction of events, poetically narrated, which includes images that represent the bliss of adolescence and its biggest fears at the same time. The music, a fantastic score by Christopher Libertino, works perfectly when we witness the past and also Melinda's everyday life. When her mother (Elizabeth Perkins) wakes her up and she's screaming, she says: "Don't worry, the boogeyman is gone". Melinda knows this is not true. She walks around with ghosts and talks only when necessary. We have the privilege of listening to her thoughts, but the movie title is precise about it: Melinda can't speak up."Speak" gets everything right because Sharzer keeps it real. It's an important detail in films like these that things don't get out of hand. Disbelief may cause distraction, but here the camera is not flashy, the dialogue is not excessive, the key moments are not over dramatized; the economy of resources in general is astounding and seems intentional. What we know about the multiple characters is from what Melinda thinks of them in particular moments or what she directly says to them in important situations. The rest we have to figure out for ourselves (specially the relationship of Melinda with her parents, also an important detail in movies like this one). The movie never explains or anticipates too much because its story depends on what we find as we watch it. Proof of this fact is the most outspoken character, and art teacher played by Steve Zahn, who has a typical bohemian/philosophic/life lesson intended speech that for any viewer may sound like bullshit. Art plays a big part in "Speak", but it's not due to the art teacher's words… It's simply because of the direct relationship Melinda experiences with art and how it widely affects her; a relationship mainly generated by the art teacher.Kristen Stewart is amazing. The depressive look on her face she has completely mastered finds its inception in "Speak". High school, lack of satisfaction, quirkiness that is sexy, a world of questions inside a world of unresolved problems and, in the end, some kind of kindness. You could say by now that she's typecast, but if I didn't say it before I dare anyone to find any other actress who can do it better. The close-ups of Stewart here are plenty and I find it hard to write (this means 'try to explain') how two eyes that seem lost in the middle of nowhere can transmit so much. I've already praised Stewart so. I'm a bit tired. Go and watch it for yourselves."Speak" is a fabulous experience, though not the happiest. You don't imagine how good it feels when a movie understands that there's nothing more left to show; that the story has been told and the screen needs to go black. I envy the way this film resolves its ending, when nothing else can be said. And don't forget the movie's called "Speak".