Most Beautiful Island (2017)

How sad is this?

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

It's funny watching the elements come together in this complicated scam. On one hand, the set-up isn't quite as complex as it seems, but there's an easy sense of fun in every exchange.

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

Absolutely boring as hell. Rated an 18 but god knows why!! Kept waiting for something to happen. In about the last 15 minutes it gets as exciting as the film gets but even that's a stretch. I honestly wouldn't bother as nothing really actually happens.

It'll be tough to write five lines. It's all right there in the summary. I read reviews and thought I was in for a shocking horror- fest ending. Wrong, it was very dull. Admittedly, I wouldn't want to be in any of their shoes in the ending scenes but it was nothing special really, a real fizzle out ending. I'm not a fan of slasher/gore films and that's not the type of horror/thriller I was looking for and still this film simply stunk. There was nothing deep I could have missed. Whoever said in their review that it was full of mystery was very very misleading, there is no real mystery, maybe a little anticipation as you don't know exactly what is going to be required of the lead character to earn this big money but it's not much and not all that unique. The acting really wasn't bad, but they had junk to work with. Oh, and contrary to one of the other reviews here, there are NO "giant spiders" just two very small ones. Trust me, this movie sucked considering all the hype the reviews on here gave it. It's nothing special, shocking or eye opening, in fact, I was sorry I left mine open long enough to see it all.

there were parts in the movie that made no sense not to mention the so called party. for example why having the bath scene where she was watching how the roaches kept coming out of the wall...save yourself an hour of life because the sick game that the woman got herself into was so hard to believe even though the movie was inspired by true events. however there was a similar sick game shown in one of the last episode of montalbano as well...it is still hard to believe that at that age a woman would got herself into such situation so willingly and naively and by all means not that desperate just looking for shortcuts in life without the hard work... while she must have had somewhat an idea the job had to be dangerous risky or at least very uncomfortable. 3 out of 10 points only because I actually watched the whole movie so it must have kept the attention. that is the only value and showing some sick entertainment choices of some circles of people that can even lead seemingly normal life during the day, which is really nothing new.

Most Beautiful Island was extremely well-received at Austin's SXSW Film Festival where it won Grand Jury Award for Narrative Feature. This eloquent film explores the experiences of Luciana, a recent undocumented immigrant, who has recently arrived from her home land and is just trying to get by in New York. The film focuses on a single day as she takes various odd jobs and then gets invited to work at a mysterious party where she will be extremely well-paid for a single night's work. The suspense builds towards a truly shocking and deeply disturbing climax. This film shows the truly dark side of the American Dream and the truly disturbing nature of class privilege in a society with huge gaps in class and, therefore, power and privilege. The story is described as inspired by true events so there may be some exaggeration in the actual climax, but it is still quite powerful and leaves the audience awestruck. Ana Asensio directed, wrote and stars in this fascinating and absorbing film. It is beautiful written, filmed and acted. The tension builds towards the disturbing climax. The American Dream is not always what it seems to be and needs to be re-imagined for our current economic and political realities. I hope the film gets distributed so more people can learn to empathize with the immigrant experience which has sadly become a political punching bag in recent years.