An odd, unsatisfying meditation on grief.
Red Road (2007)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:82
Fresh:72
Rotten:10
Average Rating:7.3/10
Consensus: Red Road director Andrea Arnold skillfully parses out just enough plot details at a time to keep the audience engrossed in this seductive thriller.
Theatrical Release:Apr 13, 2007 Limited
Synopsis:
Developed at the Sundance Screenwriters Lab and winner of a Special Jury Prize at the Cannes International Film Festival, Red Road is a bristling, atmospheric thriller that rumbles with...
Developed at the Sundance Screenwriters Lab and winner of a Special Jury Prize at the Cannes International Film Festival, Red Road is a bristling, atmospheric thriller that rumbles with intensity.
In the squalor of urban Glasgow, Jackie (Katie Dickie) works at a video-surveillance firm that is in charge of protecting people who live on a single block of Red Road. One day a man appears on her monitor, a man she thought she would never see again. That man is an ex-con named Clyde (Tony Curran). Clearly shocked to see him free from prison, Jackie begins stalking Clyde, compelled to confront him for his crimes. What mysterious history do they share, and why is Jackie so determined to punish this man? Filmmaker Andrea Arnold keeps the audience guessing and the tension building as Red Road crescendos to an explosive finale.
After three acclaimed shorts, including Wasp, which won the Sundance Jury Prize in Short Filmmaking and the Academy Award, Red Road marks Arnold's highly anticipated feature debut. It was constructed within the framework of Lars von Trier's experimental Advance Party project, the first of three films set in Scotland, by three different directors, using the same nine characters. Masterfully crafted, Red Road gets the project off to a stirring start.
--© Sundance Film Festival
Starring: Kate Dickie, Tony Curran, Martin Compston, Natalie Press
Starring: Kate Dickie, Tony Curran, Martin Compston, Natalie Press, Paul Higgins, Andrew Armour
Director: Andrea Arnold
Director: Andrea Arnold
Screenwriter: Andrea Arnold
Producer: Carrie Comerford
Studio: Tartan Films
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Reviews for Red Road
A must for movie lovers who want to see how so much drama, mystery and emotion can be created from so little.
It should be noted that Red Road contains one extremely graphic sex scene. But like much else that transpires in Red Road, what is seen is not always what it looks like on the surface.
Red Road is a promising debut by a talented director, but with luck, next time, Arnold will be in a real position of authority, and not just manning someone else's watchtower.
Where it excels is in capturing the dead end hopelessness of Glasgow's boozers and tower blocks.
[Director Arnold] drops the voyeurism theme almost entirely, a bait-and-switch that doesn't cripple Red Road so much as snip off its richest and eeriest thread.
Red Road does not make easy viewing, yet emerges as compulsively watchable.
some may find the denouement a tad sentimental, but it is a long, dark and twisted journey that takes us there, scrutinising the shadier contours of human loss and guilt like a grainy face on a screen.
Despite the thick Scottish accents, filmmaker Andrea Arnold kept me intrigued, but beyond a certain point the movie's ambiguity fades into indifference.
It's a fully realized portrait of a city, Glasgow, a portrait of a smart, watchful woman who works as a security monitor and who has endured great loss; and a portrait of the act and psychological implications of surveillance.
Ancorado pelas performances complexas de Dickie e Curran, o filme traz a diretora estreante Andrea Arnold como uma revelação a ser observada com atenção nos próximos anos.
A haunting treat and taut tale that combines civic surveillance with voyeurism, revenge with eroticism.
Its style is its substance, featuring a lonely woman who stalks a man, her motive revealed only at the conclusion of the story.
It is a film that stealthily pries open the most hardened hearts, defying expectations and offering us a heroine we realize we cherish about 30 seconds after we finally decide we like her.
Red Road is a portrait of a voyeur, and it invites us to become voyeurs of the voyeur.
What we have here is one of those very long, very slow dramas that might just have worked if the inevitable twist ending had been worth sticking around for. But it isn’t.
This psychological thriller does have a few effective moments. However, it goes a little further - too far, in fact. There are some sexually explicit moments in this that would likely garner an NC-17 rating had it been submitted to the U.S. ratings board.
Latest News for Red Road
September 09, 2009:
Andrea Arnold talks Fish Tank - RT Interview
Having bagged an Oscar for her short film Wasp and a Cannes Jury Prize for her debut feature Red Road, Andrea Arnold concretes her status as one of Britain's hottest new... More...
May 26, 2009:
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The 62nd Cannes Film Festival has officially wrapped, with most commentators agreeing that this year's selection was a cut above. There were some disappointments, but plenty of... More...
May 24, 2009:
Cannes 2009: The Tomato Report - Haneke's The White Ribbon Scoops Palme d’Or
Michael Haneke took Cannes' top honour tonight as his film, The White Ribbon, won the prestigious Palme d'Or. It's Haneke's third major Cannes prize but his first Palme d'Or.... More...
May 15, 2009:
Cannes 2009: The Tomato Report – Andrea Arnold Hits with Fish Tank
Returning to the Cannes Film Festival after a massive success there with your last film is a challenge for any filmmaker -- critics are quick to pounce on falls from form here.... More...
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