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| DIRECTED BY |
| Hal Hartley
|
| STARRING |
| Robert John Burke |
| Sarah Polley |
| Baltasar Korm�kur |
| Julie Christie |
| Helen Mirren |
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�No Such Thing� appears to be attempting an amateurish satire on the prospective reactions of the media and government to the introduction of an actual monster into everyday society but it ultimately becomes too ridiculous to be taken seriously. Characters are made unnecessarily comic and stereotypical � Hartley must�ve thought it would be hilarious to give his scientist character abnormally thick-lensed glasses and have him walk around like a fool, for instance.
The film could�ve made for an interesting love story and it even tries to go for that by the end but that angle with Polley�s character suddenly turning into a slut destroyed that whole subplot. Robert John Burke, however, is excellent as the beer-swilling suicidal monster and � whenever he�s given the appropriate monologue � evokes genuine emotion into this otherwise silly and stupid failure of a movie.
But at least it�s a relatively imaginative effort with some truly great scenes such as when the Monster screams out into the great Icelandic void and there are even some insightful moments such as when Burke gives his �adaptable� speech about human nature. Maybe if the characters weren�t made out to be so ridiculous and the events were made to look a lot more realistic and Beatrice�s relationship with the Monster was treated more carefully then it probably would have come together more neatly in the end.
