I Used to Be Darker
Director: Matthew Porterfield
Year Released: 2013
Rating: 1.0
A pregnant Irish woman (Deragh Campbell) runs away from her family and ends up in Baltimore, Maryland (!?) where she stays with her aunt and uncle ... except the aunt and uncle are experiencing marital discord and their daughter Abby (Hannah Gross) is mixed-up and prone to temper tantrums. The issue with Porterfield is that he creates a scenario ... and then refuses (or neglects) to shape it - issues are raised, tension between the aunt and uncle is apparent and then it drifts off, with little resolved and futures looking more bleak than before. Dwelling on misery and people wandering aimlessly can have a poetic side to it, but in this case I feel like I'm watching a Mike Leigh scenario before Leigh and his collaborators workshop the ever-living hell out of it.
