The main flaw for me was that it was embarking on two stories not quite connected with each other. The primal obsession of finding a love lost, and the indulgent lecture on the environment and politics and Zzzz.
My main beef with a lot of films is that is so focused on what the story is saying about the world that it forgets that primarily I’m looking to be entertained, else I’d watch some biased documentary or read up all of Wikipedia.
Give me a compelling character on any journey and I’m on board, and if by living their conflict, I’m a changed person then you’ve nailed it, but if you then pause to tell me about things wrong with the world and other offshoots that have no bearing and stall the journey then you’re just a manipulative hack. I’d rather watch it with cereal commercials interweaved like some TV broadcast. At least they’re honest about what they’re selling.
All stories are manipulative, the key is to hide that shit and if you can’t, then you’ve failed to create a long-lasting memory in me. <forced pun>
All in all, I kinda liked it, despite the flaws.
It’s reminiscent of Vanilla Sky, which I’m adding to my rewatch list.
source https://letterboxd.com/jun6lee/film/reminiscence-2021/