The Ticket (2016)

The Ticket: Directed by Ido Fluk. With Dan Stevens, Malin Akerman, Kerry Bishé, Oliver Platt. A blind man who regains his vision finds himself becoming metaphorically blinded by his obsession for the superficial.

“In u0026quot;The Ticketu0026quot; we get to meet a blind man, who regains his vision in the beginning of the film. When he does, he starts to pay more attention to his exterior, starts to buy fancier things and basically becomes an asshole.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe film was directed by Ido Fluk in a visually fine way, but in other ways lesser good. The shots looked nice, with some good use of shadow. They also play around with the use of focus and lighting, which really fits the film. The color grading was nice and it reminded me quite a lot of the film u0026quot;Demolitionu0026quot;, staring Jake Gyllenhaal, which was a notable better film than this one. But it did make sense that the film would look very good, because the main character is able to see again, so the world must look gorgeous to him, which the film succeeded at doing. I liked what they did in the beginning of the film: they put us in complete darkness, with only the voices of characters in the background. From that moment we know that weu0026#39;re seeing things from the perspective of Dan Stevensu0026#39; character: blind. But slowly the light starts to come through the iris of Stevens, and we feel how he regains his sight. They really sold me on that opening scene, but what was to come, was quite disappointing in comparison to that. What the director tried to do was to give the film a deeper meaning, which I thoroughly understand. Itu0026#39;s an independent film and it wants to draw attention, so why not do it by making the film a bit odd, and by having it have a deeper meaning. This deeper meaning though, wasnu0026#39;t as deep as it wants to be. Itu0026#39;s pretty obvious from the get-go, namely: when man is granted something big, itu0026#39;s doomed to fail. The film also does get boring pretty fast. The way characters speak in a very soft manner, the soft colors and the slow soundtrack all made the film feel longer than it was and made it feel very boring.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe acting wasnu0026#39;t a flaw, though. It was one of the best parts of the film even. Dan Stevens, who played the main character, has proved since 2014 in u0026quot;The Guestu0026quot; that heu0026#39;s a wonderful actor. Since then heu0026#39;s only been growing. This year he was phenomenal in u0026quot;Legionu0026quot; and in this film to he really sold it. The kid actor, Skylar Gaertner too was pretty good, just not as good as Dan Stevens, as he overshadows quite a lot of the cast. Skylar Gaertner played the son of Dan Stevens and there was a fun dynamic between the two of them. Someone else who was pretty good is Oliver Platt, who played the blind friend of James (Dan Stevens). The rest of the supporting cast also did quite a good job, but just like the kid actor they were overshadowed by the wonderful acting of Dan Stevens. u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe main premise was good, but not well enough explored, which is quite a shame, because it all sounds so interesting. They only bring it up to create some tension between Oliver Platt and Dan Stevens, because Platt is still blind, whereas Stevens has regained sight. They glance over the regaining sight, which I wouldu0026#39;ve liked to see a more in depth approach to. The screenplay by the way was also written by the director, Ido Fluk. I like when directors do this, because it shows the dedication that they put into this film, and it shows in the final result. I liked that they evolve Dan Stevensu0026#39; character, but I donu0026#39;t like how they do it. We get introduced to James when he regains his vison, it was a good scene, but due to this we donu0026#39;t get to know him when he was blind, because when he regains his sight he turns into a total asshole and I donu0026#39;t really get the motivation for becoming one. So I believe that if we got introduced to him earlier, we got to sympathize with him, so we later could understand why he changed and by doing that the development wouldnu0026#39;t be as abrupt as it was now. But only the part where he turns into an asshole was handled badly, the other developments were more subtle and made me care more for James. The other characters werenu0026#39;t highlighted as much as Stevens, which is really understandable, because the film is told from his perspective and the other characters really donu0026#39;t need any development, so I found no problem in that. u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eIn the end u0026quot;The Ticketu0026quot; was an OK film thatu0026#39;s worth your time. The deeper lying message was pretty obvious, but the visuals totally make up for it. The acting was wonderful, but at times the character motivation is lacking. Thatu0026#39;s why this film gets a 6.5/10 from me.”