The Discovery (2017)

  A few actions are taken to help prove this even further, one being its breathtaking visual style. The film is primarily shown in any and all shades of blue, highlighting the depressing and sorrowful themes that are discussed. Not only do the melancholic blues assist in delivering this, but also the use of a shallow focus. Almost showing how disconnected our characters actually are from reality, proving how truly focused they are on the afterlife. Another way these deeper meanings are received is through the performances. Redford gives his best performance in years. Mara continues to shine and steps into a well-deserved spotlight and Segel proves that he isn’t just a one-hit wonder. Jesse Plemons returns as another powerful supporting character, and Riley Keough is a shining star despite limited screentime.


There are two things that this film sets in stone: One, Rooney Mara continuously delivers fantastic and complex performances who deserves much more attention as an actress. Two, that Jason Segel should continuously be sought out for dramatic roles. Rooney Mara is absolutely stunning in this complex role. Not only does she gloss over the poetic dialogue with grace and ease, but she delivers complex nuances that heighten her strengths as an actress. Playing an outcast on the brink of suicide who appears to be a basket case on the surface but is just as confused and curious as the rest of us. Rooney Mara perfectly submerges herself into this type of character and perfectly fits the role. Mara’s dialogue revolves more around the obscure and speaking in the poetic tongue I mentioned earlier. She hides her truth, attempting to throw any and all people who could care about her. She creates something mystical and supernatural with this performance that is unlike any other. Onto Jason Segel, now since "The End of the Tour" in 2015 he has been on a skyrocket upwards in terms of dramatic roles. After perfectly conquering his role as David Foster Wallace, he steps into a something darker and more profound. As the disappointed and skeptical son of an icon, he proves to be the “Maybe the truth is more satisfying than the idealistic” character. Countering Mara’s constant metaphors and challenges Segel settles into something a bit more realistic and bitter.

In terms of character, this is an excellent study of how characters interact. From smaller scenes like Riley Keough betraying Robert Redford’s trust, and him banishing her from his team. To Jason Segel and Rooney Mara drifting among the aimless and sorrowful questions of afterlife and love. Turning from a pure science fiction drama film to a bit more of a mystical romance film, Segel and Mara handle this transition beautifully. Moving from simple scenes about the discovery and research into an afterlife into something that channels a bit of “Lost in Translation” kind of dialogue between Segel and Mara. The two confess past pain and tortures to one another attempting to find solace in each other. “You don’t have to do this alone anymore if you don’t want to” Segel expresses to Mara. Turning from just a hard to swallow pill about death and faith, to something deeper and meaningful about love, pain and past demons. Forcing us as an audience to connect our own painful life experiences with that of the characters, we slip down a thought provoking insightful rabbit hole that is something quite like a train wreck. It's an absolutely painful disaster that we cannot turn away from.

"The Discovery" is a poetic heartfelt science fiction tale that attempts to answer all questions that we find too hard to ask. Showing us not only what we wish we did differently in our past, but how we must accept and confront the present. Perpetually bothering us about time, love, faith, and death, the film is a difficult and soft spoken viewing. Despite shoving specific ideals at us, the film still speaks softly about these ethical questions. Through a soft and glowing visual style and powerful complex performances, "The Discovery" delivers not only a science fiction element but also a romantic element. Provoking thoughts buried deep within our own psyche through the profound experiences of the characters, Charlie McDowell delivers a beautiful piece of modern cinema and of course another brilliant success for the original Netflix feature film 

www.nextbestpicture.com/the-discovery.html

Making good on the promise of 2014’s “The One I Love,” writer-director Charlie McDowell returns with a provocative slice of theoretical sci-fi that dives even deeper into the rift between fantasy and reality. Set roughly 18 minutes after Dr. Thomas Harber (Robert Redford) has scientifically proven the existence of an afterlife, “The Discovery” leverages its high-concept premise into a contained family drama that’s less about death than it is the things that mortality forces into focus. Jason Segel plays Harber’s eldest son, a skeptic who’s deeply troubled by the pandemic of suicides that have been triggered by the discovery — arriving at his father’s Rhode Island fortress to find that the good doctor is more or less leading a cult, he meets an emotionally stunted girl (Rooney Mara) and begins searching for the answers that have eluded our species since the dawn of time. By turns resoundingly human and regretfully half-baked, “The Discovery” doesn’t quite stick the landing, but it’s still a singular examination of how people are often shaped by the roads they choose not to take