The East

[caitlinmorton]

Saw this at the preview screening today. Surprised myself by really enjoying it. I was excited for it, no question, but in my head I really hate Brit Marling, despite this being the first film I've ever seen of hers. I guess she normally comes off as pretentious to me or something.

Anyways, I really enjoyed this. It asked a lot of questions, and I found I could relate to both sides. [spoiler]Especially when they were talking about the drug that messes with you. I was once prescribed a drug with similar side effects in this country, which isn't even legal in the US. I refused to take it, which has caused a couple of doctors to take offense, but I'm not going to potentially sacrifice my motor function unless its life or death.[/spoiler] I'd be pretty upset about some of the stuff that was going on in the world too, to be fair.

I thought it was really timely with everything going on in the world, and I liked that some of those things they were targeting weren't 'true', per se, The East doesn't exist, but they drew on actual events, and it worked really well.

Also, Alexander Skarsgard. He is so wonderful. [spoiler]I think seeing him in the bath/river and seeing Shiloh Fernandez in red lipstick were the highlights of the film for me.[/spoiler]
Warning though, not for the faint of heart, and maybe don't eat during the film. You'll thank me later.

The Q&A after was really great as well, the director was very easygoing and answered the questions well.

The strange group from This is the End were there as well, though had apparently only won two pairs as there were only four of them tonight. Were being chatty cathys throughout most of the film, which was really annoying as they were right across the aisle.

Lovely to see cliveas and prettyxcool, plus others who I recognize from screenings in the past but haven't been formally introduced to (ejwrank?).

[prettyxcool]

Having been to a few screenings at the Twentieth Century Fox offices, I knew the refreshments would not amount to much, some beer, wines, soft drinks and a couple of bowl of crisps and popcorn, but I was surprised to learn that they had run out by 6.45pm (doors opened at 6.30pm), although I just sailed in at 6.25pm, but apparently there was a long queue outside! When I arrived there were about four people chatting a few feet from the entrance. Anyway, it was atrocious that cliveas only managed to get half a cup of water! I am not sure if ejwrank managed to get anything. Nice to bump into caitlinmorton after the film. I also saw those strange guys who started chatting to me - they remembered me from the Hangover 3 seating shambles, as I had been allotted a seat next to them in the corner and my OH a seat like 20 rows away at the front! Luckily, I refused to be sat in the corner, and managed to sit elsewhere after chatting up the organisers.

A touching, emotional, and tense spy thriller, with a very interesting, thought provoking topic, with lots of twists and turns. It is extremely well acted, especially Brit Marling (who also wrote the screenplay with the director), I thought she was very charismatic, Ellen Page was intimidating and then heartbreaking, and Patricia Clarkson seems more evil than the terrorists she is hunting. The extremes of the big corporate companies are horrific but then the terrorists group's eye for an eye is also just as horrific.

During the Q&A, the director informs us that the the eco-terrorist group is entirely fictional, however, he and Brit Marling had spent time with similar groups, so you do feel where their sympathies lie.

Well worth going, despite the lack of refreshments!

9/10

[prettyxcool]

Seeing as it is a HeyUGuys screening here is their review

http://www.heyuguys.co.uk/the-east-review/

[funthing29]

I thought this started off really well and showed a lot of promise. It was well acted and the characters were engaging, but any potential it had cultivated went out the window with such an awful and anticlimactic ending. 6.5/10.

[aruif]

I went to see this last week and quite enjoyed it. I did think it was way too long though and could have had loads cut out and that the end was a bit disappointing to say the least. It all worked up to almost nothing everyone got a happy ending it seemed and we never really did discover enough about what motivated some of these people.