Chronic (2015)

“That’s alright…it’s alright… It’s just the chemo” – David

Number of Times Seen – 1 (14 Jun 2016)

Brief Synopsis – A caregiver for terminal patients  does his best to help and enrich the lives of those he cares for, but lacks his own social connections in the real world.

My Take on it – I had heard that Tim Roth gives the performance of his life in this film and was quite eager to see what the hoopla was all about.

He gives a great low-key kind of performance here and is able to give us two completely different personalities; one when he is working as a caregiver where he does all he can to properly interact with his patients while enriching his own life fulfillment, but also his personality when he is off work and has trouble connecting with other people.

The story here is actually quite a boring one because instead of seeing a film with a story where things happen, most of this film is like the majority of all of our lives where little to nothing new happens each day in order to divert us from our regular routines.

I liked the way that we slowly learned more and more about his past which helped explain his circumstances and understand his life a bit better.

The message about how fleeting life can be and the need for us to try and remain as optimistic as possible works effectively here but unfortunately the lack of much of an engaging plot or story dilutes it too much.

I’m glad I saw this, but I have little doubt that I will ever feel the urge to watch it again.

Bottom Line – A pretty boring movie where like most of the days in our lives, not much happens to change our daily routines.  Roth really is great here in a very low-key type of role, but we see how much his work enriches his humdrum life.  Liked how they slowly gave us more and more information about him in order for us to better understand him. The message about how fleeting life can be and the need for optimism works, but is drowned out by the lack of much happening here.

MovieRob’s Favorite Trivia – There are only 97 shots in the entire film, lasting under a minute on average. (From IMDB)

Rating – BAFTA Worthy

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