“Don’t Look Back” is a silly entry in the “things are suddenly not as they seemed genre.” These are the films in which characters wake up one day to find that everything in their life has changed, from the color of their furniture to their very identity. To me, this is a cheap trick, a gimmick that has only worked in “Twilight Zone” episodes and the last act of “It’s a Wonderful Life.”
In “Don’t Look Back,” French beauty Sophie Marceau stars a writer struggling with her latest book. Ironically, she finds more success recounting other people’s lives rather than her own. When her childhood memoir is rejected, she plunges headlong into madness, seeing the terrain of her life transform before her eyes. Her physical appearance morphs into that of an Italian woman (Monica Bellucci) and everyone around her changes shape as well.
It is difficult to fret about this character and her existential crisis when we know very little about her. Despite Marceau and Bellucci’s nerve-jangling performances, the lack of character development makes her metamorphosis merely strange rather than devastating.
Instead of examining the emotional repercussions of a reality warp like “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” or “It’s a Wonderful Life” did, this film simply asks us to get swept up in its bizarre atmosphere.
The film’s trailer (the only special feature on the DVD) asks questions like, “What if you looked at your reflection and saw a stranger?” Screenwriters Marina De Van and Jacques Akchoti’s only answer is, “That would be weird.”
Movie: 2 Yaps
Extras: 1 Yap