{"id":40604,"date":"2023-08-09T02:33:52","date_gmt":"2023-08-09T06:33:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=40604"},"modified":"2023-08-09T02:33:52","modified_gmt":"2023-08-09T06:33:52","slug":"new-life-2023-fantasia-film-festival-2023","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2023\/08\/09\/new-life-2023-fantasia-film-festival-2023\/","title":{"rendered":"New Life (2023) [Fantasia Film Festival 2023]\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

A woman is on the run, trying to make her way North. As she is meeting allies, a mysterious woman is on her tail, trying to stop her.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Written and directed by John Rosman, New Life is a timely film, or rather was a timely film about 2-3 years ago. It deals with things we have seen in real life and have seen in film multiple times since then. So, this means that the story is not exactly unexpected or entirely original. It does start off pretty well with an introduction to the lead character that does not make it clear why she is running. This mystery is kept for a bit, then the viewer is let in, allowing them to know more about the mystery in the story. The first third does work and, well, the rest works as well, but it feels like something we\u2019ve seen before, something cobbled together from multiple things we\u2019ve seen before. Which means it loses the advantage it had early on, and it becomes a bit of an \u201cas expected film\u201d which is too bad. The way the story develops loses steam and thus the attention of the viewer. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The cast here is decent, giving performances that are mostly on point, but as the film loses steam, so do the performances in a way. There is something in lead Hayley Erin\u2019s performance which makes you wish they had done more with her character. Yes, she\u2019s central. Yes, she\u2019s got plenty to do. But she\u2019s also limited in a few ways that makes it feel like something is missing here. The rest of the cast is also decent, but honestly, the performances don\u2019t shine over the others, no one really steals scenes. It\u2019s an ensemble cast, yes, but it feels like they are not aiming high enough, like they are aiming at middle ground and that is frustrating to watch. Ayanna Berkshire does need to be pointed out here, she does come off warmer than they others, like she brought just a little something extra to the part. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The film\u2019s look is fitting with the story, so on that front the cinematography by Mark Evans is on point for the film itself. It\u2019s nice enough, it shows the action, it shows the d\u00e9cor, the settings, the nature in the outdoor scenes, but it all feels a bit grey. Of course, this is most likely as planned, so the work, as mentioned above, is on point for the film. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This is a film that has so much potential, it\u2019s something that everyone into this subgenre will want to love, but for this viewer, it missed the mark. The film is decently made and all that, it just doesn\u2019t hit right, and the second half becomes less and less interesting as it goes along. It\u2019s one of those films that makes you wish it had kept up with its beginning, that it had just one little thing more to it to make it more interesting. It\u2019s a film that makes you wish it were better and perhaps had come a couple of years ago when the subject was fresher and more \u201cof the moment\u201d.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This year the Fantasia International Film Festival runs in Montreal from July 20th\u00a0to August 9th.<\/span><\/i><\/b>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A woman is on the run, trying to make her way North. As she is meeting allies, a mysterious woman is on her tail, trying to stop her.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1284,12],"tags":[1749,477,1087],"class_list":["post-40604","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-festivalsevents","category-movie-reviews","tag-fantasia","tag-horror","tag-thriller"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40604","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40604"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40604\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40605,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40604\/revisions\/40605"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}