Cinema review
Directed by Fernando Meirelles
Starring Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo, Alice Braga
Release date 21 November 2008 (UK)
A sudden, unexplainable case of widespread human blindness begins to consume an American city. The local authorities react by placing the afflicted in quarantine at an old mental hospital. In the midst of the hysteria only one woman retains her sight…
An apocalyptic thriller, Blindness never defines when it is set (the plot and visuals hint at the near future) and it certainly wins points for style and a blossoming sense of onscreen panic. Julianne Moore largely has to carry the film herself; acting as a guide for a rag-tag group of understandably panicked blind people who, left to their own devices in a rusty old sanatorium, are faced with a gang of murderous degenerates unwilling to share any paltry rations with strangers.
Unfortunately, what should create an atmosphere of Omega Man-type horrors never quite hits the right mark. Director Meirelles previously won plaudits for his arthouse hit City of God and, placed here in the midst of a Hollywood genre flick, he consistently tries his best not to scare or shock. The end result feels like someone trying their best not to make a gritty sci-fi/horror movie even when the material insists that the onscreen visuals, and atmospherics, get down and dirty.
Attempting to make a powerful post-9/11 message about alienation and the crisis that human beings go through when they are forced to work as one, Meirelles has instead crafted a two hour bore. Calum Waddell
VERDICT: 5/10
Imagine Dawn of the Dead if there were no zombies but lots of chat, arguing and running around in search of food and you have Blindness.
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