The Guitar (2008)

The storyline is engaging and thought provoking. There were moments where I felt inspired by the main character's plight.However, throughout the movie, I could not help but feel irked by a number of the unoriginal and overused techniques the director employed to force the audience to feel something. For example: the slow, melodramatic montage scenes in which the main character twirls in the sunlight with a shawl wrapped around her; the scenes in which the main character, reflecting on her childhood,is shown as a 7 year old girl sitting sadly by herself on the stairs as she watches and hears her parents argue.There was also a lack of honesty about the character. One example in which this lack of honesty manifested itself was in the 'heroin-chic' appearance that the main character took on as she rapidly accepted that she was going to die. This says more about the director and the director's 90's influence than it does about the actual character.Either way, this movie is definitely worth a look just for the life lessons alone.

**Spoiler Warning** This is basically a film about Melody, a woman who finds out she has an inoperable tumor in her throat. Her whole life basically collapses as she finds out she has only a couple months to live, her boyfriend dumps her and she gets fired from her job and this all happens in a single day. My biggest problem with this film lies in the fact that it basically winds up being a film more about consumerism than a film about a woman confronting the final months of her unsatisfied life.Once she finds out she is dying Melody leaves her crappy apartment and rents a really large and beautiful penthouse. The rest of the film basically takes place in this penthouse as she basically locks herself in and spends the next 2 months charging up her credit cards by buying things for herself and her penthouse. She starts out by buying the most expensive bed that she can find and from there moves on to expensive furniture, clothes, lamps, vases, food and pretty much everything in between. Her final purchase ends up being a guitar and a huge amp setup with which to play it on.Its just incredibly sad and extremely bothersome that this woman's spends her final 2 months basically being a consumer. The really sad part about this is I actually think there are a lot of people out there that would do the exact same thing. Society has become so consumeristic in nature that I really think that what this woman did would be some people's dying wish. Out of all of the things someone could devote their final months of life to, shopping has to be the absolute saddest choice possible. She could have traveled the world, learned to scuba dive, taken a safari, seen the Sistine chapel, sailed the Caribbean, hiked a glacier in Alaska, taken a cruise to the antarctic, or done whatever other things she wanted to do but never got the chance. To choose to lock yourself up in a Penthouse and shop till you drop is just an incredibly sad way to spend your final months and again it really speaks to the role that consumerism plays in society these days. Some people care more about buying items than truly experiencing life.Its not a bad film, in fact I rather enjoyed it. I was just really bothered by the message that this film puts out there. Then again as I said before there are probably a lot of people out there that would do just this sort of thing if something like this happened to them so maybe it makes this film even that much more realistic. She did learn how to play the guitar, which was something she was interested in as a child, so she did fulfill at least one of her dreams. Its still wasn't enough to make it any less sad.I am not sure if this film was purposely making some kind of statement regarding consumerism or not. I would like to hear from the writer and director regarding their thoughts on this matter. Either way its definitely the prevailing message in this film. I despise the level of consumerism we see these days so maybe I am a bit biased however I really cant think of too many people who would not find this woman's decision on how to liver her final months incredibly sad and pathetic. Our lives are short enough even when we aren't diagnosed with a terminal disease early in life and there are just too many things to do, too many places to see and too many experiences to have to waste our final months shopping.

I just watched this movie and was greatly moved by the story line as well as by the acting. Personally I am in great love with music and especially with guitar and not surprisingly the theme of the movie attracted my attention a lot. I had some kind of expectations while watching this movie and I am please to tell you that I was not disappointed at all.The movie builds around the central character who suddenly finds that she is suffering from a terminal disease and has very little time on her side. So, she decides to do whatever she really wants in her life. Though there were some errors in the script but overall the whole movie was very much enjoyable and it's worth a watch for.

Adolescent, uninspired movie about a girl who is dying and decides to buy things, kiss girls, and become unbearably shrill.There's no sense of reality here. Seriously, this movie makes the television programme "Friends" look gritty. We've seen this all before SO MANY TIMES. Not a note of originality in the tinny, cliché-ridden screenplay. Pretentious? This movie is so self-important it's almost sickening. It's a lame, boring artistic failure. Some of the supporting roles are well cast. I wish Ms. Redford more luck next time.