GazerRise Fantastic!

Pacionsbo Absolutely Fantastic

Voxitype Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

Tobias Burrows It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

Bert Krus Bottom of the World is in my upinion a story about psychotic breakdowns but it's not clear who suffers this disease. Is it the boy or the girl? Both of them have different versions of their time together. Delusions of love found and lost drive the protagonist over the edge. Partners vanish or are being replaced by other persons. Nobody can help them find their way back to reality.

Lapis_Lazuli_Blue This film is a compelling though flawed experiment in utilizing a dreamlike/hallucinatory narrative. An ordinary seeming young couple, Scarlett (Jena Malone) and Alex (Douglas Smith), are driving across the country to LA, but she gets ill while they're in the Southwest, and they check into a shabby chic motel (the sign shifting between reading "motel" and "hotel" is one of the first clues that you're in the realm of the subconscious). Scarlett then tells a horrifying story about her systematic abuse of a helpless, paralyzed cousin in her care (before laughing it off as though it were a joke). This story, which initially seems like a weird detour, is actually the key to the whole movie.Like An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, Jacob's Ladder, or Mulholland Dr., Bottom of the World depicts the hallucinatory final thoughts of a dying person. Scarlett, driven to suicide by guilt over her inexplicably cruel and violent acts, has deliberately overdosed, and the events of the film, until its last few moments, are occurring entirely inside her head. Consequently, Alex isn't a real person, but the kind of strange, fluid composite character you often encounter in dreams. At different times, he is her boyfriend, her ill-fated cousin, a fictitious assailant, an angel of death, and, above all, an emanation of her guilt. Likewise, a strange televangelist preacher (Ted Levine) that Alex encounters along the way is really Scarlett's father, whom her dying mind has transformed into someone giving sermons about guilt and redemption--themes that are particularly relevant to Scarlett at that moment.Overall, I thought it was a flawed film that is worth watching, but I don't think I'll want to see it a second time. I enjoyed Levine's performance. I liked Malone, too, though I didn't quite get how someone who committed such horrifying crimes would have enough of a conscience to be overwhelmed by guilt, but that was more of a writing problem than an acting problem. I thought Smith seemed a bit too young for his role, though he was effective at times. I also appreciated the attempt to recreate the weird, fluid quality of dream narratives, but, strange as it may seem to say, I don't think the filmmakers went quite far enough in that direction.

Peter Pluymers "Wayne was doing really weird things with his eyeballs. Wayne's dad was a Marine. It turns out he was doing Morse code with his eyes. He was saying, "SOS, SOS, SOS, SOS., over and over and over."Perhaps I'm a weird personality. That's the reason why I really enjoy movies like "Bottom of the World". Contrarious, difficult to understand, confusing and slightly disturbing. As the denouement kicked in and the inextricable story became a little bit clearer, I was totally stunned. It was undeniably clear to me that I wanted to watch this weird movie again one day. Only to discover other clues. Clues that escaped me. I fully realize that most people who saw this movie, won't like it at all. Many will see it as a waste of time. A meaningless, dumb film with an incomprehensible story-line.To be honest, I had that same feeling after the first 15 minutes. We see Scarlett (Jena Malone) and Alex (Douglas Smith) cruising across the US. Two youngsters in an old, American car, on their way to L.A. and enduring the scorching heat of the desert. Where do they actually come from? What goal are they aiming for? And where are they exactly? I had no idea. They decide to spend the night in a strange looking hotel, with an impressive and magical looking lobby, while the part where the guestrooms are situated, resembles that of a cheap motel. And then one absurd fact follows after another. A local television channel with a pseudo preacher (Ted Levine) proclaiming religious messages. A weirdo who observes their room at night. And then Scarlett seems unable to leave town without feeling as if her head explodes. And finally she disappears.And then there's even bigger confusion when Alex wakes up in a seemingly different life as a married, well earning husband. Even more weird. The woman living next door is Scarlett. From here on, the story lines seem to twist around another like cooked spaghetti and there are several facts that refer to what's real. I'm not such a big fan of films full of symbolism and metaphysical states. The makers tried to find a proper balance between reality and a sort of dream phase. In the end I was wondering which personage actually exists and which personage originated from a subconscious mind. I assume that everything has to do with a guilt feelings caused by an unacceptable act from the past. (Think this is a hazy description? Well that's intentionally.)Jena Malone is no Scarlett Johansson, but in a way she succeeded in looking sensual and seductive. On the other hand, she also appears to have perverse traits and you start to question her mental health. The story she tells about her nephew and the way she treated him, isn't something a mentally healthy person could come up with. Even if its purpose was just to shock Alex. Personally, I thought Douglas Smith acted rather soft and absent. And wasn't he a bit too young to be a married guy? At first I thought it was his mother in the kitchen. All in all, a fascinating film that leaves you behind with more questions than answers.More reviews here : http://bit.ly/2qtGQoc

charles000 I was a little bit skeptical going in, but thought it might be worth a watch just to see Jena Malone do her thing here.More than a bit surprised, this was a clever puzzle wrapped in an enigma that requires more than a bit of attention paid to subtle details sprinkled into what seems to be a jagged form of editing, but is remarkably well resolved in the end. Jena definitely delivers what may be her best character study yet, but that's not to take away from Douglas Smith, who did an equally plausible job portraying a young guy caught up in a seemingly impossible situation.I simply can't reveal what that "seemingly impossible situation" actually is, in that would be an obvious spoiler, but to discover just how far out that resolution is, you're just going to have to watch for yourself. Trust me on this one, it's worth the wait to find out.Along the way in this uniquely twisted adventure are all sorts of quirky characters, which at first glance might seem to be absurdly overdone cliché' character concept representations, until the actual context becomes more apparent. Then it all begins to make sense . . . sort of . . . until the very end.For some, this might take a bit of patience. There are moments which seem bizarrely out of context, or just don't seem to fit into what appears to be the story of the moment. But that's the key here. Time can be a fluid medium, depending on where one might happen to be in a yet to be fully defined version of reality.Having said that, there were some clumsy moments where the editing definitely could have fit together better, or scenes that appear to be more than a bit rough around the edges, but the given the uniquely original story and how it's told, a certain amount of forgiveness can be granted for such imperfections.Maybe not the best, but certainly not the worst of such attempts at this sort of genre'.A solid seven stars for me . . .