Life (2015)

I barely got half way through the movie. This review is not on the film its self but mainly about the casting. The fact that I am such a huge James Dean fan and I couldn't watch this is upsetting. Casting DeHaan as Dean was the biggest mistake. Everything about it was wrong. After watching James Franco's portrayal of Dean I think you have to really get it spot on in order to measure up. It's not just the looks, it's everything. The voice, the posture, the acting and impersonation in general. I was really excited about this but I can't enjoy it because that is not James Dean.

Greetings from Lithuania."Life" (2015) isn't a real biopic. It is more of a persons portrait in that particular time and place - not the best, not the worst. Strange to say but "Life" is more like a character study movie then a real biopic about James Dean. Dane DeHaan acting was quite interesting. I'm still not sure was it good, but it surely wasn't the best real life person interpretation ever. Other were OK, nothing special. Overall, if you are looking for a good James Dean biopic, this movie will probably be a bit disappointing. It is not particularly involving one, it is more of character study drama. Directing was pretty nice, although at the running time 1 h 45 min this movie is very slow paced, it is not a bad movie by any means, just not particularly engaging one because of the script. 7/10 in my opinion.

OK, I will try to be fast: everything is wrong in this film. I was really wanting to see like, had hoped it was good, but not Life is basically proof that it is not any director or screenwriter who can make a good biography, or in this case at least a cohesive biography! The nearly two hours of history are basically "cut-outs", with almost no connection to events in the life of both James Dean (Dane DeHaan) as Dennis Stock (Robert Pattinson) - the latter being the central fact of history - and actually are cutouts same, the film does not seem to care in making connections between scenes, many of them come to not make sense, "friendship" Dean and Stock is crafted from a terrible way, in fact everything in history is working in a way bad, it just says "you who are watching have to accept it, we will not explain why or give any logical development," scenes "drama" very forced and "played" senseless none in the middle plot, Pattinson does not convince ( not that it is to blame for the bad movie), and finally, Dane DeHaan can take some good acting of a character written in such a shallow way (what are you doing there ?! DeHaan). The film is bad, no coherent script, bad direction, bad production, bad editing, in short, Life is a biography without cohesion, portraying James Dean like an asshole, Dennis Stock as a "silly" and moreover has a scene vomiting in a child! In short: If you want to waste your time, this film is really what you need.

Life Magazine photographer Dennis Stock forms an attachment and gets to spend time and photograph a young James Dean in the early stages of his tragically short career. Set around the time of the announcement of the engagement of Pier Angeli to Vic Damone, the news sent Dean spiralling into depression, Dean having dated Angeli previously. Dennis recognises that 'Jimmy' is part of a change in society, and aims to be there throughout.James Dean is a truly iconic figure, to this day his tragic loss is felt, who knows how good an actor he would have become. It's a very sensitive film, everything is subtle and softly done somehow, I include the two leading performances in that summary also, I thought Dane DeHaan was an excellent piece of casting as James Dean, I bought into him. As for R Patz I quite like him as an actor, I question some of the roles he takes, I thought he was very good in this. The gravitas came from Ben Kingsley, who unfortunately didn't get a great amount of screen time.I find the start a little slow, but after the first thirty or forty minutes it really opens up. Rather good, underrated movie, 7/10