Day Twelve: Watch a Film

Well, the title of this blog post explains the challenge we chose yesterday, so I don't need to say that again. But as a result, I'm unsure how to start this post. Well I suppose I've started it now so that's a relief. 

We don't very often watch films. We watch a lot of telly and enjoy box sets (who doesn't?) but it's been a while since we watched a film together. This is silly because we pay for a subscription to Lovefilm and so get sent a blu-Ray in the post once a month (old school I know), and so really watching a film together should be a regular - you could say monthly - occurrence, but it's not. But I really enjoyed the one we watched yesterday, so maybe we'll get back into watching movies again and eschew box-sets in a fit of anti-bandwagon sentiment. 

We watched Before I Go To Sleep, starring Nicole Kidman and Colin Firth, and I am happy to recommend it as well worth watching, particularly if you've not read the book. Actually, if you've not read the book, read the book, because it's better than the film. Although maybe I'm just saying that because I read the book first....hmmm. So my recommendations would go, in order of recommendation, thus:

1. Read the book, then

2. Watch the film, or

3. If you need some persuading to read the book, watch the film and then read the book, or

4. If you're not a big reader, watch the film instead 

I hope that helps and brings some clarity. 

It's the sort of plot that once you know it and know what happens, any attempts to re-experience it are noticeably devoid of the tension and suspense you enjoyed the first time round. But notwithstanding this fact, the film was still good, which is good if you're going to go with any combination of the recommendations outlined above. Despite knowing the plot, I still felt gripped, jumpy, and frightened (in a good way).

I don't really like Nicole Kidman but she's good in this. Well I say 'good' as if I am some sort of judge of her acting ability and screen presence and other proper things like that; what I actually mean is she wasn't annoying. Colin Firth was, I thought, also very good, and I was surprised because I've not seen him as anything like the role he plays in this film. 

That is the extent of my film-reviewing skills. As an activity for the evening, it was a success, maybe more so because of the fact that we've both read the book and so found ourselves talking about the similarities and differences, and our expectations, more than we might have done otherwise, which added an extra element of interest to the evening.