In general, to avoid "spoiler reviews," I try to spend most of my time talking specifically about act one and talk in generalities about acts two and three. Act one of Dot the I sucks. We get relatively uninteresting characters, and it is obvious that the film is trying to set up a thriller plot-line, but
we're never given any real clues to build the suspense.Acts two and three rock! The thriller plot-line manifests and turns this film into a brutal version of The Shape of Things. I especially liked the satire of the independent film industry, and that's about all I can say without spoiling the prestige.Verbeke is a beautiful, doe-eyed innocent with a flash of the bad girl here and there; she makes for an alluring screen presence, but I don't see much depth in her performance. D'Arcy is fantastic in acts two and three, but he's as boring as the film in act one. In the few Bernal films I've seen, he does a Mexican imitation of Jim Carrey and Zach Braff, but he is able to keep that annoying side of his acting under control for most of Dot the I.Overall, if it were possible to skip the first forty-five minutes and still understand the film, I'd suggest it.
January 3, 2011
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