The Ticket (2017)

The Ticket (2017)

IMDB Rating : 5.5/10 (as on 16.04.2017)

1h 37min | Drama

A blind man who regains his vision finds himself becoming metaphorically blinded by his obsession for the superficial.

Director: Ido Fluk

Writers: Ido Fluk (screenplay), Sharon Mashihi (screenplay)

Stars: Dan Stevens, Malin Akerman, Kerry Bishé

IMDB link Here

Out of the Dark, Temptation Abounds in ‘The Ticket’

JEANNETTE CATSOULIS

There are some gnarly questions — of faith, love and self-worth, for starters — at the heart of “The Ticket,” if only its makers had chosen to address them. Instead, this unquestionably adult drama about a blind man who can suddenly see unfolds with an emotional sophistication that far outstrips its narrative nerve.

For perhaps the first time, James (an exceptional Dan Stevens) is experiencing temptation. The shrinking of a pituitary tumor has restored the sight he lost as a teenager, and he’s less than happy with what he sees. On a quest to upgrade his home, his job (as a mortgage-refinancing drone), and his wife (the gorgeous Malin Akerman, here reverse-engineered to look homely), James becomes the epitome of soulless ambition.

 “You don’t want to lose control,” he tells his wife when she balks at his newly unilateral decision-making. An image makeover and an affair with a sexy co-worker (Kerry Bishé) accompany his corporate ascent, but it’s his psychological torment that the director, Ido Fluk, is most eager to plumb, and he does so with captivating sensuousness.

For a while, this makes “The Ticket” a fascinating character study expressed through whispered conversations and flickering light and shade. Its emotions — like the jealousy of James’s blind best friend (Oliver Platt) — feel brutally honest, as does its understanding of the allure of being desired without being pitied.

Yet the script is incapable of penetrating the moral thicket that the actors and the cinematographer, Zachary Galler, have so carefully woven. Ambiguities are hacked away, until what’s left feels more like a salute to karma than like a candid reckoning with a gift that’s as much curse as miracle.

Read full review at New york Times

A fable centered on a sweet blind man who regains his sight and, surprise, turns into a bastard, the movie also could be read as a cautionary allegory about Stevens’ career ambitions: Leaving behind quainter English pastures in pursuit of the Hollywood spotlight — he’ll play leading man to Anne Hathaway and Emma Watson, respectively, in Colossal and Beauty and the Beast, and has jumped on the Marvel bandwagon as star of the upcoming FX series Legion — comes with risks as well as potential rewards.

That said, Stevens may be the real deal. The Ticket is underwhelming in several ways, but the performance driving it is magnetic — and helps alleviate some of the bludgeoning obviousness of a morality tale that New York-based Israeli writer-director Ido Fluk hasn’t fully figured out how to tell. Fluk brings his original script (co-written with Sharon Mashihi) to the screen with a mix of Malickian lyricism and Euro-flavored neorealism, stylistic influences that feel too lofty for what is, despite biblical undertones, a rather thin story. The Ticket might have been better served by a bit of the lower-brow — some noirish snap or a dash of horror. As it is, the movie is full of intricately pretty images that fail to resonate with real meaning.

Fluk's compositions are at once chilly and sensual, with a European art cinema buff's attention to bodies, and there are lovely moments throughout: James and Jonah in a swimming hole, scanning the water's surface in search of fish; James and Sam's regret-soaked slow dance at a community center social; a tracking shot that trails Jessica through a grassy field as she looks back teasingly at the camera. That shot, along with fleeting flashes of amorous smiles, caresses and fingers being run through hair against leafy, light-filled backdrops, calls to mind Terrence Malick in his current post-Tree of Life period. You get what Fluk is going for: The vibrant visuals (and intensified ambient sounds) of the film's middle section represent the world as James is experiencing it, literally through new eyes. Everything appears shimmery and sublime.

Moreover, The Ticket, like most Malick films, is about a fall from grace, a corruption of nature (though in this case it's human nature, rather than the natural world, that gets poisoned). But whereas Malick's visual approach, at its most effective, elevates his slight narratives, coaxing out their universality and making them feel weighty and ancient, Fluk's style has a somewhat opposite effect; the formal richness is a bit like a fancy disguise that only makes us more aware of the plainness of the story beneath it.

Indeed, there's not much to The Ticket aside from its central gimmick, and once you see where the movie's going it's a bit of a slog. Making the stark character and plot shifts of a parable feel organic in a realistic modern setting is a tall order. But if the film had gone bolder, wilder — if it had leaned more toward pulpy pitch-black thriller rather than wispy semi-impressionistic drama, for example — it wouldn't have been bound by expectations of psychological and narrative credibility. Stevens plays wicked well; too bad the movie doesn't follow his lead.

Read full review at Hollywood Reporter

Movie Rating ★★★☆☆  

Dan Stevens goes from blind saint to sighted monster

Nigel M Smith

Imagine you’re blind, then one morning you wake up having inexplicably regained your eyesight. How would that change you? Affect your loved ones? Alter the course of your life?

As conceived by writer/director Ido Fluk in his stylish, slow-burning psychological drama The Ticket, that scenario would spell your doom. Admirably cynical until it loses its way in the final stretch, The Ticket nevertheless maintains a provocative allure, bolstered by a fiercely committed performance from Dan Stevens.

Fluk opens The Ticket in darkness, with a blind man (Stevens) heard canoodling with his wife, (Malin Akerman), and then praying alone, thanking God for his blessed life. The next morning the man wakes, only to discover that his sight has been miraculously restored.

Immediately, James begins to make lofty promises to Sam, vowing that he’ll work towards getting a promotion at the real estate firm where he works the phones, now that he can see. To Sam’s surprise, in no time James makes good on his word.

With sudden power, his ego begins to inflate to epic proportions. Like a teenager who’s just been given his first taste of freedom, James rebels by blowing his earnings on a new car after getting a big pay raise, failing to consult with Sam beforehand. He also takes a dangerous fancy to a sexy female co-worker.

However, just as James’s destructive new lease on life is going full throttle, the film-makers slam on the brakes. For no discernible reason, other than suddenly missing his loving family, James starts to see the error of his ways. As a result, his ensuing about-face feels totally unearned.

Up until this point, James has done a stellar job at proving himself to be a heartless, self-interested asshole. It’s impossible to get on his side after he’s irreparably damaged the lives of all those around him. When he howls to God, pleading for forgiveness after acting like such a cad, it’s simply a case of too little, too late.

And maybe that’s the point The Ticket is trying to make: that when gifted with newfound abilities, humanity is doomed to fail. If so, it’s a bit of an obvious one.

Read full review at The Guardian