Mr. Nobody — too many possible lives
An imaginative film about choices and the lives we might have led. Beautiful in places, though its ideas sometimes crowd out its people.
An imaginative film about choices and the lives we might have led. Beautiful in places, though its ideas sometimes crowd out its people.
Spoiler-free review.
Mr. Nobody starts with the sort of question that can eat up an afternoon: what would your life look like if you had made a different choice? Then it refuses to settle for just one alternative.
Jaco Van Dormael moves between possible lives with real visual imagination. A cut, a repeated image, or a change in setting can make two very different paths feel connected. I enjoyed that freedom, especially when the film trusted an image to carry the idea.
The structure is also where it gets in its own way. There are so many possibilities competing for attention that some relationships feel more like examples in an argument than people I have had time to know. Jared Leto gives the film a consistent presence, but the emotional connection comes and goes.
The dialogue is mixed for me. Some exchanges catch the uncertainty of trying to choose a life. Others explain the bigger ideas a little too neatly, when the images have already made the point. I wanted more time inside a few moments and a little less time being told what they might mean.
7/10. Ambitious, sometimes beautiful, and worth watching for its imagination. I liked the questions more consistently than the way it arranged all the answers.
Directed by Jaco Van Dormael · 2009 · English. Film details: Magnolia Pictures. Poster artwork © its respective rights holders.
An imaginative film about choices and the lives we might have led. Beautiful in places, though its ideas sometimes crowd out its people.
— Desly