Quiet River (2014)

Quiet River: Directed by Polly Schattel. With Rae Becka, Caleb Burress, Lauren Fortuna, Bryan Marshall. When a recently divorced woman returns to the Appalachian mountains of her youth, she learns that her brilliant but troubled brother is implicated in an act of radical Eco-terrorism. As her own life falls apart, she works to uncover the dark truth at the heart of the matter — and learns that blood is sometimes no thicker than water.

“The plot is mildly interesting, but simple. Perhaps too simple for the screenwriters to adequately explore and present. Itu0026#39;s almost as if it was made up by the crew as they shot it. Disjointed in places; some sequential scenes didnu0026#39;t abut each other sensibly. Some scenes are poorly designed or lazily monitored, such as when the grandfather clocku0026#39;s chiming is left in the scene at the neighboru0026#39;s house; if not kiboshed by the director at shooting, at least editing shouldu0026#39;ve pointed it out later and instigated a reshoot. It totally interrupts and derails the dialogue between actresses Rebecca and Lauren.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eMost annoying was the main characteru0026#39;s stumbling dialogue. Too much of my time frittered away with the camera on Claire (actress Rebecca) and waiting for her to assemble a complete thought and put together a concise statement or question. Drove me nuts. Instead of her saying the obvious, we are left aching while her mind stalls for repeated eternities. I place more of this on the direction than on the actress, but it felt like both hold some responsibility… perhaps itu0026#39;s unfettered overacting, trying to demonstrate with the face what they thought was taught in acting class, but that shouldu0026#39;ve simply been forthcoming with words.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eExcept for the fact that Iu0026#39;ve seen worse movies, Iu0026#39;d have given this only one star.”