Woof. Who wanted this? Who needed this? This seems to be Spielberg's coming-of-age tale and where his love for film was birthed. It's not a very captivating story. The writing and pacing are totally uneven - the more joyful scenes are written and directed to be extremely corny, and thus, when the dramatic scenes hit, it's hard to take them seriously and they feel very out of place. It kind of reminded me of Pleasantville with its tone, a film whose main fault is the lopsidedness of its inorganic tone-weaving.

The casting feels way off. Paul Dano is near impossible to take seriously, looking and acting like an angry teenager, but portraying the esteemed father of this very traditional family. Michelle Williams is generally a brilliant actress but seems to be written and directed into a corner with a brick of cheese here. Seth Rogen does fine with his limited lines, but...why Seth Rogen? It could have been anyone and for the average person, that's...Seth Rogen. While theres supposed to be high drama attached to his character, the drama is lightened and tainted by the mere fact that its Seth Rogen at the other end of it. The school bullies in the final 1/3 of the film truly take the crown as the most unbelievably corny part of the film though - cliche as can be, corny as can be. It's literally impossible to do anything other than laugh at them, when you aren't supposed to be doing so. The only performance that really shines in this movie is that of young Gabriel LaBelle as the lead - he is the only one who manages to channel real emotion through this flatulent script. Ok, and Judd Hirsch in his sole scene - which is easily the best scene in the entire movie, and one of the only truly strong scenes.

This is one of those classic cases of a movie being almost 3 hours long when almost nothing happens the entire time. There is absolutely no reason this movie needs to be 3 hours long. It hardly creates an effective atmosphere. It's not surreal. There is no story. So, why 3 hours? There are so many scenes that could have been cut entirely or shortened, that served almost no purpose. For example, the adultery plot point is way overblown and drawn out, and honing in on it serves no purpose after the initial discovery and direct results. A lot of the dialogue is just painful - disjointed, unfunny, unnatural.

Really, this movie overall is just such a mess and a slog - it really blows my mind that anyone digs it. I'm looking at Spielberg's filmography and the last films I liked by him came out in 2002. He's made A LOT since then...maybe he should cool it at this point. Or, stop and rethink his approach...