Wolfgang56
Protestant
Just came back from seeing "We Bury The Dead." It was okay, guess.
It's a serviceable plot about a wife (Daisy Ridley) looking to find her husband after an accidental U.S. military experiment that has turned local Tasmanian residents into what are essentially zombies (more of the original Night of the Living Dead classic variety). There's some (obvious) anti U.S. sentiment felt by the locals given the accident, but the fate and state of the outside world can only be guessed at. Where's the rioting? The panic? The destruction? The soldiers there occasionally kill attacking infected but otherwise the setting is too peaceful to be seen as both apocalyptic and dire, thus killing the emotional tension we could've had in Ridley's character as she desperately tries to find her husband. What also hinders said tension is the fact that we never really feel the connection she had between her and her husband, especially with how heavy handed the movie is in showing us how much they "love" each other with the film's relentless flashbacks telling us so.
She's paired with a local in their mission to search and cleanup bodies. He's shown to be very headstrong yet charismatic, that he used to bury a fair bit of shame and self-pity and he was honestly the only form of energy I felt from the movie. They set out to find her husband and it would've made for a far interesting movie if the film was focused squarely on them as the two had some chemistry (even romantic chemistry arguably at parts) that could've been better built out as the film progressed but he gets arrested by some lone solider ten minutes later and vanishes from the movie up until the last twenty minutes or so (how he showed up at the resort Ridley's husband was before she did was never explained.)
The solider is later shown to be deranged after losing his pregnant wife in the accident and attempts to get a little too close to Ridley's character to the point where she is forced to kill him. As she continues her search for her husband the "zombies" are eventually shown to display signs of intelligence and a bit of humanity, as with one returning to the RV Ridley's character is sleeping in for the night to bury his dead family. A sort of interesting idea with zombie lore that really went nowhere.
She eventually finds her husband dead and having cheated on her, only for Ridley's character to reveal she cheated on him prior (after issues with having children which she wanted to have via IVF, he didn't), thus him taking the business trip to the area to clear his head. She and the local drown their sorrows, bury Ridley's husband and head back on the road, presumably back to civilization. They find the wife from the solider Ridley's character had killed having given birth to her child before abandoning it to die. Ridley's character then takes the immune (?) infant, presumably as her own child. Movie ends.
I guess the "zombies" here were an allegory for the painful parts of our past that sometimes comes back to haunt us, but the movie lacks any creativity and energy to make that point hit hard. 5/10 for me.
She's paired with a local in their mission to search and cleanup bodies. He's shown to be very headstrong yet charismatic, that he used to bury a fair bit of shame and self-pity and he was honestly the only form of energy I felt from the movie. They set out to find her husband and it would've made for a far interesting movie if the film was focused squarely on them as the two had some chemistry (even romantic chemistry arguably at parts) that could've been better built out as the film progressed but he gets arrested by some lone solider ten minutes later and vanishes from the movie up until the last twenty minutes or so (how he showed up at the resort Ridley's husband was before she did was never explained.)
The solider is later shown to be deranged after losing his pregnant wife in the accident and attempts to get a little too close to Ridley's character to the point where she is forced to kill him. As she continues her search for her husband the "zombies" are eventually shown to display signs of intelligence and a bit of humanity, as with one returning to the RV Ridley's character is sleeping in for the night to bury his dead family. A sort of interesting idea with zombie lore that really went nowhere.
She eventually finds her husband dead and having cheated on her, only for Ridley's character to reveal she cheated on him prior (after issues with having children which she wanted to have via IVF, he didn't), thus him taking the business trip to the area to clear his head. She and the local drown their sorrows, bury Ridley's husband and head back on the road, presumably back to civilization. They find the wife from the solider Ridley's character had killed having given birth to her child before abandoning it to die. Ridley's character then takes the immune (?) infant, presumably as her own child. Movie ends.
I guess the "zombies" here were an allegory for the painful parts of our past that sometimes comes back to haunt us, but the movie lacks any creativity and energy to make that point hit hard. 5/10 for me.
