The White King (2016)

The White King: Directed by Alex Helfrecht, Jörg Tittel. With Olivia Williams, Fiona Shaw, Jonathan Pryce, Greta Scacchi. A 12-year-old boy rebels after a brutal government labels his father a traitor and imprisons him.

“This follows a family living in a totalitarian dystopia.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThis is a hard film for me to review.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eFirst off, its production is very good. The camera work and direction is great. The characters are very well constructed and the acting is absolutely top notch. The world is quickly and deftly painted using iconography and suggestion. The world is oppressive but not overly brutal making it feel more real and dangerous. I enjoyed every minute of the first hour greatly and was gripped to see what was going to happen.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eHere is the problem. Not much does happen. This film has plenty of story, but hardly any plot. Characters are introduced, and adversities befall our leads, but very little is resolved or explored. Any small victories the characters win arenu0026#39;t exploited.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe only analogy I can think of is if you made a film about a waitress who works in a bar in Star Wars. Sure dancing girls are fed to monsters and Jedi come in – but at the end of the day you are still watching someone serve drinks.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eMaybe it is my personal taste, I thought I was more open minded than this, but it seems I do need a certain degree of resolution.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eI kept the mark high because of the quality of the film making – not sure if I would recommend it though.”