Shawn's Blindness Review

2008 Movie #148 - Blindness

I watched this movie on Christmas Eve of all days. Nothing like a bleak drama about the end of the world to get into the ole holiday spirit. I was even wrapping presents while this was playing in the background. I had been curious about this one for a while. I liked the premise and I liked the cast and I wanted to see how it all came together. I had been warned that it was a very depressing movie though so I never was really in the mood to watch it. For some reason Christmas Eve became the day. Overall, I’m not too upset that I waited this long to watch it.

My main problem with this movie is the execution. I think this is a solid idea for a movie (the whole world going blind at once) that could have been really great and really creepy. This just isn’t the movie I was hoping for to go with this plot idea.

It starts off really well with a great opening sequence that really shows how sudden and fucked up the situation is. This really got my hopes up for what was about to transpire. Then things take a turn and the movie starts to unravel.

Right after this sequence we enter the hospital wards where all of the blind people are taken. This is where the majority of the movie then takes place. That’s another huge problem I have with the movie. After a while the movie focuses on the breakdown of the ward and how food is running low and how one of the wards has gotten power hungry and started to run things. For a while I forgot everyone was blind. It plays a role sure, but it’s not the focus. It felt a lot like Lord of the Flies and I wasn’t really interested in any of it. I was more interested in seeing how everyone was dealing with suddenly going blind, not how they would get food from their evil co-patients.

There is a bit at the end that shows how the world has been affected by it, and it’s more of how I envisioned things, but sadly there isn’t a whole lot of it. It doesn’t make up for the hospital portion of the movie, which I found to be boring after a while.

The performances are good, although at times I felt people seemed to be handling the fact they had just gone blind a little too well. People would be in hysterics if this happened but in the movie, people were generally calm and fairly ok with what was happening.

Good concept, blah execution. That about sums up my thoughts on Blindness. Maybe down the road someone will take another stab at a movie about this. I do think it deserves to have a better movie made about the subject.

** ½ /5