Platicsco Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Phonearl Good start, but then it gets ruined

Merolliv I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

Fleur Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

mirbass It appears as if audiences either love or hate this film. For those people who hate it, the major complaint seems to be that they found the movie confusing and disjointed - and this is a completely understandable statement, given that the main aim of this film is to present a story as seen through the eyes of someone who has a fractured mind.A very brief synopsis: The movie opens with a series of flashbacks, introducing us to the main character, Ben (Colin Firth). Ben awakens from a week-long coma only to discover he has lost his wife in the very same car crash that put him in the hospital in the first place. Whilst recovering in hospital, he also learns that an R'n'B diva has been brutally murdered, and he soon finds himself obsessed with the details of her grisly murder. He moves into an apartment complex -- an old hospital currently undergoing renovations -- and meets his landlord, the sweetly innocent Charlotte (Mina Suvari). Soon after, Ben's grip on reality begins to loosen as he tries to piece together what happened to his wife and uncover the suspicious reasons behind his obsession with the murdered diva.I own this movie on DVD, & have watched it multiple times. It never ceases to mesmerise, even though I know how the story plays out. The acting is quite good, although Mina Suvari's character can come across as a little wooden at times. Colin Firth is such a quality actor, and he does a brilliant job here convincing us of his tortured-soul status, in a role quite different from his usual 'just-a-normal-guy' routine. In fact, I think his 'just-a-normal-guy' reputation is actually part of what makes this film so creepy - because his character is clearly not 'normal'.When watching this movie viewers should keep in mind that this story is told *entirely* through the viewpoint of a man whose own view of the world is fractured. We, the audience, are given no "life raft" points of view from the other characters in the story. And this is one of the reasons why this movie is so brilliant: the story-telling is disjointed, because the main character's own thought processes are disjointed and non-linear. The editing and cinematography are an important part of the story-telling, featuring jump-cuts, unique camera angles & the use of reflections to depict a shattered perspective on reality. Metaphors & red herrings abound and soon the audience - like Ben - is left wondering what is real and what is all in Ben's mind.

MBunge You're always hoping for something good. Whether it's a movie or a song or a plate of spaghetti, you're always hoping it'll be satisfying or fulfilling. That doesn't always happen, of course, but even when things aren't good, they can still be enjoyable. And not just in a Mystery Science Theater 3000 "Let's make fun of how bad it is" way. Sometimes a failed attempt can be more entertaining than a seamless success.Trauma isn't good, but it also isn't bad. Trauma just…isn't.The movie starts out with Ben (Colin Firth) apparently losing his wife in an auto accident that throws him into a coma. He emerges from the coma to find the rest of the world mourning the death of a famous pop singer, leaving him to grieve while surrounded by indifferent grief. That's not an unpromising beginning for a story but it's followed by a whole lot of nothing. I'd almost defy anyone to watch the first half of this film and try to figure out what it's about. There are moments in the first half of Trauma when reality starts to seem unreal to Ben, but those moments don't relate to anything or signify anything or make any sort of point.Things do start to happen in the second half of the film, yet happen is all that they do. Telling a story is like building a chair. There is an almost unlimited number of ways to do it, but some of those ways work a lot better than others. I f a story starts at point A and A leads you to B and A and B flow into C and all three propel you into D and so on and so forth, that's one of the best ways to tell a story. That's the way most stories are told. Folks have been tinkering with that approach, trying to find different ways of getting from A to B to C to D. But whether they go from A to D or D to A or C to X to Q, most good stories start in one place and build a road that takes you to a different place.Trauma is uninterested in building that road. There's no sense that things are unfolding in Ben's life in any particular direction or for any particular purpose. When the film starts to upend Ben's view of reality, it doesn't mean anything to the audience because the revealed truth doesn't alter or have any connection to what Ben and the audience thought was the truth before. This movie is like a 90 minute long, bad twist ending. A good twist ending makes you look at what came before it in a different way. A bad twist ending tells you all the stuff you've been watching, didn't actually happen that way.For all that, though, if you really liked Colin Firth in some of his more high profile roles as the repressed Englishman that hopelessly romantic women eventually realize they should be with, you might enjoy watching give a completely different performance. Firth's Ben is a man descending into madness in a decidedly untheatric fashion. He's not terribly interesting on his own, but it's certainly not the standard "sanity slipping away" acting role. Mena Suvari is also quite lovely and manages to make a shallow character into a real person.This is a British film and like a lot of other British movies, it's an odd visual mix. Modern British cinema, at least in my somewhat limited experience, mixes very ordinary and pedestrian visuals with strikingly artistic images. Sometimes that can be quite compelling and sometimes that doesn't work at all, like when Trauma suddenly lapses into a scene that is a blatant rip-off of the movie Jacob's Ladder.All in all, I can't say that Trauma is a bad movie. It's just that it never amounts to anything…and I'm not sure the filmmakers even wanted it to be anything.

treeline1 Ben (Colin Firth) was in a bad car accident that killed his wife. As the story opens he's in the hospital, coming out of a coma. He goes back to his creepy apartment building where he is the only resident. He cannot come to terms with his wife's death and hallucinates about her constantly. To make things worse, he finds himself the prime suspect in the brutal murder of a famous rock singer.Yikes. This is a bad movie. It attempts to be an art film delving into the mind of a mentally ill man, but falls completely flat and is just one long, confusing, and very unpleasant movie. We never know if what we are seeing is real or imagined; it's too hard to follow and totally repellent. Firth does the best he can with the terrible script but I didn't like or care about his character at all.If you're afraid of creepy crawly creatures, this is not the movie for you; the same goes if you're looking for Firth to be a debonair heartthrob. Not recommended.

venom8-1 I knew not of this movie's existence until catching a viewing on the fantastic Independent Film Channel late one night. I was drawn into the story with wonderful acting by all that participated. The movie has a few twists & turns, but is easily followed. I felt empathy for the main character's apparent situation. Mena Suvari's performance was beautiful, & though I have watched her good performances in other films, this role could have been performed no better. She was perfect! I am now a Colin Firth fan as well. He too, was brilliant in his role. Unfortunately, this film is a little known treasure. Thank goodness for the Independent Film Channel for providing viewers an opportunity to see films that are not main stream commercial giants, but just as good, if not better. This movie did not rely on state of the art special effects. This film was driven by a good story, & great performances.