The central character of this movie is William Vincent played by James Franco as a relatively young man who has begun a slow moving yet painfully real descent into the dark side. This film is beautifully photographed and acted, yet quite sufficiently spooky in bringing about the descent of the central character, as he doesn’t wear the surface signs and signals that he could be drawn to the dark side which for some unknown reason becomes more of an irresistible presence to him. If someone who seems as well presented as he seems to be can fall prey, can it begin to happen to anyone else who is not seeing things always for the better and guarding against the shadows from arising and becoming too great a force to contend with aptly and skillfully? In what could be the thriving metropolis of a great cultural city of New York for any given person, Vincent just seems to see lack and disenfranchisement, yet the lens of others, at least on the surface would not have seen him this way and he would have had real opportunities for good relationships and good working endeavors that he could have gone with and expanded in the light. He used to be a great runner metaphorically representing places of freedom and hope, not to long ago, and has taken the turn down the paths of perdition without his two younger brothers while seemingly retaining some of the resemblance and innocence of his former now better self. He seems to have the blinders on anything that opens up into light, hope and the better people and situations that had to be there in such a large city. What brought about this increasingly sizeable gap to his former self is not explained in this movie, and neither is his inability or unwillingness to put the brakes on an even further descent into the shadows. This movie does a great job in capturing a descent that seems to involve the Vincent putting his own blinders on the good, and only reaching out for what is less and much less, than all of the better which is all around yet seemingly there as only a passing glance already lost forever. The metaphor of this film unfortunately may be truly operative for many. That there is a slow forming and then rapidly advancing inability to look at the good and the better with a square eye and it can only be seen obliquely as something that is there but not there and having this view can take with it another view, that only the shadows can now arise and only that can be real.
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Tribeca film festival, movies, entertainment, character portrait. shadows,
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