Based on the Danish young adult novel by Janne Teller, Nothing may be the best movie I saw at Fantastic Fest and was definitely the darkest.
A young boy named Pierre Anthon (Harald Kaiser Hermann) has seen the inherent purposelessness of life and decided to climb a tree and stay up there like Zacchaeus or a prepubescent Simon of the Desert. His friends are concerned about him and try to get him to climb down. Some throw rocks. He stays there.
Led by Agnes (Vivelill Søgaard Holm), the schoolchildren still want to prove him wrong, so they gather a heap of meaning, each offering sacrifices with deep personal meaning. It starts with typical teenage things but soon the sacrifices grow dark and even murderous.
Much like Kids or Peanuts -- truly the only time both have been used in a comparison -- parents aren't there. It's these kids building a monument to something, anything, facing the idea we all must that the world is not safe and no one can protect us.
Directed by Trine Piil Christensen -- who also wrote this movie -- and Seamus McNally, Nothing makes me wonder how much I really want kids because when they get this old, how will I talk them out of doing something like this? I figure my kid will be the one up in the tree, but let's be serious. He, she or they will be the one down in the basement watching slashers with us.
Director
Movie Reviews
Dark as dark can be
Great book, terrible adaptation
I really liked the book, and looked forward to this
adaptation. When was done seeing it, was very disappointed.
The plot is of course the same but, the child actors are very inexperienced. This could also just be bad directing.
Many things in this film happens for no reason and without an explanation. For example, Agnes's sandals were significant because, she saved up for months and worked hard for them. This is not even commented on by Agnes. There are many items in the pile, that lack an explanation for their significance to the person giving it. This also devalues the piles' significance.
But the biggest problem about this movie is its pacing. The pacing is very weird and bad. In the book, the timeframe is an entire school year. In the film it seems to take place, in a couple of days or a week. This affects the film because, the entire film seems very rushed, and because of that there are numerous unnecessarily subplots and extended scenes to pan out the runtime. If the timeframe is a school year, it's very bad executed and the film overall is very affected by this.
The only reason give it a 4/10 is because of the plot and the fact the book was adapted into a film.
Movie of the year
Intet is an adaptation of the novel by the same name, and while I loved the novel seeing it all on screen makes it feel so much more real.
It has also of the aspects that made the novel a masterpiece the ridiculous and funny nature of the pile of meaning, a great cast where everyone feels somewhat important and recognisable and the deep and meaningful narrative with an important message.
Not only does it have these things that made the novel great, but it also has some great acting and cinematography, that helped making some of those really uncomfortable and hard to watch scenes even better.
Overall an absolute perfect movie that I can only give a 10.