'Secrets of a Scandal': I'm not even fascinated by them

From the outset,

Secrets of a Scandal

had various attractions.

Like seeing that good and disturbing actress named Julianne Moore and Natalie Portman act together for the first time.

She left me touched when she was a girl in

León, the professional

and I fell in love with the beautiful

Beautiful Girls

.

And that intelligent and beautiful creature grew very well.

For me, she represents an inexcusable claim, regardless of the quality of her films.

She is someone I always like to see and hear.

And I'm not a fan of the prestigious director Todd Haynes.

There is a charged and experimental point in almost all of his films.

Although I really liked the exquisite adaptation he made of Patricia Highsmith's novel in

Carol,

achieving memorable performances from Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara.

Directing actresses is what this sophisticated and intense man does best.

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But in

Secrets of a Scandal

I am not even convinced by that obvious gift.

I even have a hard time physically recognizing Natalie Portman.

I find her expressionless, there is something strange and superficial in such an exciting actress.

Or could it be that her character, like the movie, provokes similar tedium in me.

She plays an actress who, to learn intimately about the woman she is going to play in a film, spends a few days with her and her family.

The story of the second is strong.

A teacher, with a husband and children, at the age of 36 she hooked up with a 12-year-old student. They imprisoned her, the years passed and when she left the prison she hooked up with the kid again, they formed an indestructible couple, they had children and apparently they were happy and ate partridges

Underground, the actress will discover that everything is more twisted and complex, that there is mystery and drives behind what reality appears.

Things will also happen to her that were not foreseen in her script.

Julianne Moore and Charles Melton, in 'Secrets of a Scandal'

The murky story could be fascinating, but Todd Haynes's way of telling it makes it insignificant, and uselessly pretentious.

It rolls in a very strange way (at some point, the characters address the viewer in close-up with some absurd speech), the camera and the narrative do deliberately strange things.

Sometimes I cannot understand what they are trying to tell and I am not interested in what seems to be transparent.

They are supposed to reveal various enigmas to us, psychologism is as abusive as it is tortuous, but I am absolutely uninterested in what I see and hear.

There is a lot of desire for visual style on the part of the director, to avoid naturalness, to convolute situations to make viewers doubt.

And his pretensions turn out to be empty.

And boring.

There are quite a few things I don't understand.

And those that are crystal clear make me bored.

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Nor am I at all fascinated by the often exceptional Julianne Moore.

If I told you before that it is difficult for me to identify Natalie Portman, with the eternally redhead Moore I am not used to seeing her dyed completely blonde either.

I imagine trying to physically resemble the real character as much as possible.

And they tell me that the script for this film is up for an Oscar.

I don't understand almost anything in it.

I don't know if the problem is mine, or the script, or how the director has developed it.

Almost everything in this film seems fake and hollow to me.

Secrets of a scandal

Director:

Todd Haynes.

Starring:

Natalie Portman, Julianne Moore, Charles Melton, Andrea Frankle. 

Genre:

drama.

USA, 2023.

Duration:

117 minutes.

Premiere: February 23.

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