In The Tradition Of Movies Like Crash, Magnolia (A Brilliant Movie), Babel. Pulp Fiction We Follow 4 Different Stories As They Slowly Weave Together Becoming In The End One Story ... Ryan Phillippe Is A Detective Seeking Justice For A Dead 6 Year Old Girl ... Bernard Hill A Worried Father Looking For His Lost Son ... Sam Riley A Man Looking To Replace The Love He Has Lost ... Eva Green An Artist That Suffers Through Multiple Suicide Attempts For Her Art ... These 4 Lives Are Thrown Together In What Appears To Be A Perfect Religious Society ... Like The Movies This One Imitates This Is A Brilliant Story That Reminds Us That As Large As The World Is It Is Very Tiny In The Scope Of All Things ... We Are not Alone, We Live, Suffer, Laugh, Cry, Rejoice, Etc .. Together ... The Writing Is Excellent As Well As The Acting ... Special Credit To Gerald McMorrow's Direction, His Ability To Keep Such A Huge Story In Front Of The Camera From Beginning To End Was Amazing ... Also It Would Be Wrong To Not Mention Those Who Handled The Production Design, Art Direction, Set Decoration And Costume Design ... Original And Enticing This Is Not A Movie To Be Missed ... In A World Gone Mad Hope Survives

Oh gods, this movie was awful. I give it a middling score as it was in certain parts visually compelling and there was nothing wrong with the acting, but it was poorly edited and paced, thought it was a lot smarter than it was, and made not a lick of sense.This seems to be a movie designed to defend itself with cries of 'it's so artistic' or 'it's not a dumb popcorn action movie', but I like slow movies, clever movies, and this was neither of those things. It's plot meanders about with cuts that make little sense, the emotion doesn't hit home, and while it is not incumbent on a movie to raise questions and then answer them (sometimes the point is there is not an answer, at least not a clear one), that's an artistic decision that needs intelligence and skill to pull off, and the movie lacked both, at least when it came to storytelling.There's enough hope at the start for something to tie it all together into something that might be decent, I was intrigued, and I'm fine with a slow pace, but what did come together in the end was a mess without emotional impact.Sorry if this all sounds harsh, perhaps despite my protestations to the contrary I am merely an uncultured barbarian who cannot appreciate the deep themes that were being aimed for...but I find it hard to credit the movie enough to think that. Self indulgent, it probably made sense in the writer's head as a character portrait set against a fantastical metaphorical backdrop, but on the screen the story was not compelling, the character's not given enough to work with to be interesting, the attempt to weave the settings together was clunky, and not enough was done to justify why this tale needed it.

Dark, depressing, boring, psychological CR_P!! Goths and weirdo's will love it! Cannot believe the British spent money on this drivel!! Got half way thru and turned it OFF!! I would rather watch paint dry! Its absolute nonsense and makes no sense whatsoever! I nearly wanted to take a razor and slice my own wrists.... for goodness sake it seems like a whole bunch of people were on Valium and Prozac when they came up with this...put your money into making something interesting, as I know the Brits can, but many times they are producing some incredible dark and depressing and vulgar rubbish!! And I'm not wasting my time on any more on a review for it.... its a complete flop!!

It is hard not to feel you need your brain in overdrive after the first fifteen minutes of this film such is the constant tripping between Meanwhile City and London, but, as the characters develop, and their personal tales unfold, the film becomes strangely obsessive and compelling. The acting of the four main leads, Ryan Phillippe, Bernard Hill, Eva Green, and Sam Riley is superb throughout, lending the story a bleak feeling of reality only sporadically interrupted by the even bleaker visits to Meanwhile City. Stephen Walters also deserves a mention for his excellent portrayal of Wormsnakes.But this film isn't about being cold and bleak, it is about discovery and how even our quirkiest traits fail to stop us uncovering what needs to be exposed. Franklyn is much more than a competent piece of cinema with its twisting and turning, it asks us to revisit our many suppositions as the film unravels. And that is its main point: the journey IS worth it. And Franklyn is well worth its 7/10.