Purely Joyful Movie!

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

There is lots I like about this film , the filming , the cityscape , the interaction between the mother and daughter . Also , the internal struggle with the meaning of life which lot of us identify with . I mainly struggled with her lack of money , despite having a high profile job in a large company , she had actually nothing to survive on and live in a very modest flat . I'm not sure how she could barely survive a month when she lost her job . The realisation of employment reduction in the future will frighten the millenials.also I missed where the replacement bodies come from.

Making a believable science fiction film is hard. Making a believable science fiction film on a low-budget is nearly impossible. Well at least it used to be until director Jennifer Phang came along and proved otherwise in her Sundance festival hit, Advantageous. Phang was able to create a futuristic world with minimum visual effects by altering mundane human perception. There are three important techniques she uses to achieve this effect.The first is the deceleration of time for background objects while objects in the foreground continue to move at a regular speed. This mixture of various speeds becomes a motif for understanding the futuristic world she presents to the audience.The second technique is the compression of space achieved by using telephoto and zoom lenses. The human eye perceives depth of field in three dimensions. Objects farther away are small and objects closer to us are big. This is normally replicated with a dolly shot in films where the camera physically tracks forwards or backwards. However, in Advantageous, the zoom lens is used to compress the space in front of us. The camera stays still and we simply get closer to the subject. This causes a flattening of space to the point our eyes are no longer able to perceive the distance between the foreground objects and background objects.The third technique Phang uses to create a believable science fiction world is silence. Yes I talk about silence a lot, but it does wonders. Our ears are not used to hearing complete and utter silence. In every moment, even at the quietest moments, we are subjected to some level of constant ambient noise. Whether it's coming from the Air Conditioner, the Fridge, the Wind, there's always something preventing us from experiencing complete silence. However, when we do finally get the chance and we see a character on a big screen screaming and crying in complete silence, our ears are hit with a new level of sensory experience. The new sensory experience is foreign to our ears and forces the audience to take the character he or she is watching out of his assumption of the character's world. This means, the audience finally recognizes that the character he or she is watching does not have the same sensory understanding of the world as he or she does.These three techniques were vital in Phang's ability to successfully create a sophisticated and at the same time genuine science fiction world on a low-budget.

What a pleasant surprise this film was. While trying not to get too much into detail, as not to spoil any of the intricacies of the movie, I'll say that while this is in the realm of sci-fi, the movie has much more on it's mind than merely that. It conveys as much in it's beautiful nuances and a refreshing subtlety that is sadly missing from many newer films of it's ilk. The film is also wonderfully acted across the board. So that doesn't hurt.This mini-review was inspired by a haiku that I wrote on twitter, which I shall also include here for the sake of posterity (if for nothing else) Also in revised form as the original was sadly incorrectly in 5 7 6Character driven Well crafted slice of sci-fi Deliberate pace

To be fair, I didn't know what to think of "Advantageous" as it began, especially with the summary provided...but what I found was unexpected, in the best way possible. "Advantageous" is a surprise, a hidden gem with subtle complexities that slowly, and quietly touches at your heart. This film is a slow-burner, one that takes awhile to get going, but once it does, it captures your interest and leaves you intrigued.In the meantime, as the world Gwen (Jacqueline Kim) and Jules (Samantha Kim) unfolds and we catch glimpses of their present day, we're given a beautiful mother-daughter relationship that made me tear up a few times, believable dialogue and gorgeous cinematography. I loved the colors and detail put into this film. At times, it felt a bit...stilted, and the world they inhabit is never fully explained, but hinted at, and we're given bits and pieces of it here and there. But for a film like this, where it is shown versus explained perhaps, a second watch is required. However, that doesn't take away from the experience "Advantageous" is; a quiet experience, but an experience nonetheless.