Kraska v nesnazich (Beauty in trouble)

So what is this one about?
Netflix says, A natural disaster forces Marcela (Anna Geislerová) and her husband, Jarda (Roman Luknár), to make difficult choices in this powerful drama from Czech director Jan Hrebejk. To make ends meet, a desperate Jarda resorts to stripping stolen cars, but Marcela can't accept his new life. She moves in with her parents, becomes involved with a wealthy older man, and must choose between a life of quiet security and her turbulent, but passionate, marriage.

I guess technically this is a proper description of this film, but after seeing it this isn't really true. I guess this movie is about the choices people make.

Interestingly enough, Jack once told me about this website where they do TV Guide type one sentence descriptions for the movie that while factually accurate sort of miss the point. This movie was sort of like that.

And how much did I pay to watch?
$10 at Landmark E Street cinema. AKA...where all the bourgie city folk go on Saturdays.

And what did I think?
First things first...I saw this movie because I read a review of it in the Washington Post. They described the movie just like Netflix did. {Normally I don't bother reading reviews, EVER, but I saw the part at the bottom where it says, "Czech language with English subtitles", and I became curious} But after seeing the movie the description just seems wrong. While technically that is what the movie was about it just feels like it wasn't really accurate.

One of the weird things about this film was the music. I mean, the music choices were full on bizarre. Some of the music was like Czech pop/folk music, and it was woven into the movie through a character who interacted with the main characters who played accordion and sang. For example, in the opening scenes she was singing (like doing a sound check) at a bar that the main character's mother worked at. Then later she was doing a concert for the men in jail when her husband was in jail. And the songs she sang were subtitled in English and sort of like, told a story, recalled what had happened and made value judgements. Like when the husband was in jail and the wife was off in Italy with her kids and the new man the singer was like "She is gone, flown away, you let the bird slip from your hands". Odd things like that. THEN it got even weirder because there were 4 songs in English by Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova--the musicians from the movie Once. It. was. SO. weird!!

I guess what the Post was blathering on about in their review was that the characters weren't "good" or "bad" but were good or bad at different points...telling us stupid Americans that Europeans don't have the same black and white conceptions of "good guys" and "bad guys". I mean, yeah, I guess this was true, but I don't think the vagueness added anything to the movie.

In the end I ended up not liking the main character or the choices she made.

Oh yeah, and her boobs were in everyone's face the entire movie.

So what is the rating? (out of 10)
I guess this movie wasn't really a bad one, technically. I just didn't really care for it. Maybe I need to see it again or something, but even now I feel like I am not communicating well that for some reason the movie just didn't sit right with me. It wasn't bad, it wasn't good, I just didn't really like it.

But it wasn't really a bad movie, so I'll give it a 4.