BY RICARDO LUJAN
This week’s marathon will be focusing on sad movies. These movies do have the possibility of making their viewers cry. Bringing a tissue box for this marathon is recommended, so let’s get this marathon started.
For the first film of the marathon, we have Brain of Fire. This movie is based on the true story of Susannah Cahalan. An up-and-coming journalist who ends up running into a major unforeseeable obstacle that could possibly derail her life.
I didn’t know what to expect coming into the movie. A friend had actually recommended this movie for this week’s marathon. It turned out to be a good recommendation. Brain on Fire is a very hard movie to watch emotionally. The acting by the cast is great and really pulls you into the emotional scenes.
Unfortunately, the movie does have an issue with pacing as some parts do seem to drag which can lead to your attention being taken by something else. Overall, the movie does help deliver a message about the problems we can encounter in real life and can help other people who are experiencing the same issues that Susannah Cahlan went through. You can find Brain On Fire currently streaming on Netflix.
This is quite a strange pick for the marathon. It is actually a short film rather than a full feature-length film. The film’s runtime is only twelve minutes, but in those twelve minutes, it manages to deliver a powerful message.
The story of this film is sad, but beautiful in a way that I would accredit to the animation. The way the drawings are animated to showcase the meaning behind the characters and how they are feeling is brilliant. There are no spoken lines in this film. Everything is expressed via the animation or by the soundtrack yet they still managed to allow the viewer to understand the emotions each character is going through perfectly.
The gut-punch that is the climax of the film is the part that got me as all the questions I had about the story were answered. It’s easy to see why this film is a 2021 Oscar Nominee. You can find If Anything Happens, I Love You streaming on Netflix right now.
For the final movie of this week’s marathon, we have Five Feet Apart. Once again, this movie was also recommended by a friend of mine as it is their favorite movie.
The story of this film is very good. Each of the characters is actually very likable and the actors do a phenomenal job acting off one another. I really appreciate that the writers weren’t afraid to make the story realistic rather than giving the typical Hollywood movie ending. The film pulls at the strings of your emotions in multiple ways.
The two main characters, Stella and Will, played by Haley Lu Richardson and Cole Sprouse respectively are the standouts of this film. It was nice to see Cole Sprouse in a film again as I remembered him from when he was on Disney Channel as Cody in the Suite Life series.
I can see why this film is my friend’s favorite as it also earned itself a spot on my favorite movie list as well thus earning itself the final spot of the Tri-Movie Marathon. You can currently watch Five Feet Apart on Showtime and the Tiger Movie Channel that is provided to students.
Thank you for tuning into this week’s Tri-Movie Marathon. Tune in next week as the theme will be animated movies.