Refraction

This film was well-shot, competently executed, and the lead actress was great, but it was let down by its story. It started off nicely with a Dear John letter to our heroine being read out, and then shows her breaking down in tears and reverting to a fantasy world. This is where the solid story fell apart. It is not explained why she goes into this world, and the man she meets there serves no purpose, they talk about this world and spend alot of time explaining how it works but not showing us anything. All these scenes were confusing and I didn't really know what was happening. There is a small battle scene in the forrest, which doesn't really seem to fit. Then when this world starts to get interesting, we are taken out of it. In this story the 'real world' story was more interesting the fantasy they were trying to create. With a bit less exposition and a more coherent story, this could have been a contender.

A story that uses fantasy as its framework for getting over a relationship breakup was an interesting take on the genre. I don't know where this team shot the film but they found somewhere with some truly majestic overhanging forest trees and a large clearing with no houses or technology in view of the whole horizon, meaning the tone was well set. Coming up with their own fantasy terminology - it was 'Phanthom' wasn't it? was a bold move, although the final battle was a teency bit underdone (the team did the best they could though and the makeup effects on the villanous Phanthom more than made up for not having any real effects or spells).

film started off mint, but got a little lost at the end with the whole zorb bussiness, good costumes good acting and nicely shot