So, as you can read from the summaries online, Katherine is on the verge of a mental breakdown. The worst part is her "friend" Virginia, does not get her help. The way mental illness is viewed on this movie is ridiculous. You see Katherine slowly crumble over what? *spoilers* her boyfriend dumping her. Not to mention her father killed himself and instead of point blank clarifying that, everyone in the movie avoids that word like the plague and say depression killed him. Her friend lets her sit in despair without lending a hand whatsoever. And this brings me to my next point: sexism. These two women pine over men and are classic "frenemies". Instead of being strong women coming together and healing each other over past trauma, they mentally abuse one another and turn around to say "But we are best friends". In some scenarios, yes women treat each other like garbage, but not to this extent. Virginia claimed she gets rid of energy vampires in her life, but doesn't get rid of Katherine; instead, knows Katherine is spiraling out of control and allows it to go on for far too long. This is a plot that is completely overdone and sexist. You would honestly think these two are sisters or maybe even ex- lovers. Instead, they are manipulative friends who are vindictive and ruthless to one another. I see a few reviews saying their relationship slowly ended. If you pay attention to detail, last year when Katherine was there, they belittled each other. Classic "cat fight", right? Virginia also could not recount where Katherine was when she was dating a man from her past. It's funny how best friends KNOW where their friend is, and know the man the other is seeing. My conclusion is they have always had a repulsive friendship. Everyone wants to say "well it's persona swap, a sub-genre of movie that shows women slowly merging or taking on the personality traits of each other". To be fair, it isn't even that noticeable it happened. As a matter a fact, on the low-key, they acted like one another here and there. This isn't true friendship and the way the director showed mental illness (what appears to be schizoaffective disorder) is disgusting and cliché. Not sure how Metacritics gave this such high reviews. Is it because of two women leading? Or because it shows two women constantly verbally striking each other down and remaining "friends"? Toxic, repetitive, and downright creepy (not in a good way). If you can take a nap for an hour and a half, I suggest that over spending a moment watching this movie.

Queen of Earth follows a woman who, after her boyfriend breaks up with her, goes on a trip to a somewhat secluded cabin with her best friend, and ultimately they run into some troubles in their relationship.I liked how this movie was shot. There were some pretty lengthy shots that were just people talking, meaning that they had to memorize a lengthy set of lines and recite them while maintaining their character. Moreover, some of the shots were just kind of pretty to look at. There were some cool ideas. The way it tried to use symbolism and portray the main character's ongoing conflict was kind of cool, but unfortunately it didn't work out. The biggest thing that really brought this movie down was the dialogue. I've seen bad dialogue and writing before, but this tops all of those. Characters often embark on long lectures and speeches that sound like they were both pre-written and practiced. Not only was the dialogue unrealistic, but the meaning of it was also awful. The two main characters, who are supposedly best friends, spend the entire movie elaborately telling each other why they are each horrible people. And they definitely aren't being sarcastic. How are these people still friends? Even in their flashback conversations they just trash-talk each other. Now you could argue that maybe I'm pointing out only the bad conversations they have, but they never say anything nice to each other. I recall one line from the entire movie where one of them says that she likes the other. That line was immediately followed by hate, however. So the movie never actually shows us that the two main characters are best friends despite stating that they are. Overall Queen of Earth is a bad movie. Sure, there were some cool ideas and pretty shots, but the dialogue is so incredibly awful that it's hard to enjoy really any part of this movie. In the end I definitely wouldn't recommend this movie.

Double bill time! US indie filmmaker Alex Ross Perry's two latest offerings, vary in their own strains, LISTEN UP PHILIP is a Woody Allen-esque drama-comedy and QUEEN OF EARTH probes into a more psycho-horror genre without resorting to cheap scare.The former, stars Schwartzman as the titular Philip Lewis Friedman, an up-and-coming novelist is on the cusp of publishing his second novel, but finds himself in contradictions with everything in his life. Wearing a seasonally-inappropriate jacket, a metaphor of his failure of accustoming his ever-distending ego to the reality, Philip waywardly puts a damper on the relationship with his live- in girlfriend of two years, Ashley (Moss), an aspiring photographer, after he accepts an open-end invitation from a venerable writer Ike Zimmerman (Pryce), whom he vastly admires, to stay with him in the latter's country house under the pretext of rendering a finishing touch to his upcoming novel.Cynical as me, an instantaneous question emerges, why Zimmerman wants to help Philip at the first place? Since what we have been imbued as far is that Philip is an objectionable egomaniac who may or may not have the potential to be a sterling writer, betrays his sexist stance and well- conceived jealousy as soon as he has the possibility to achieve something (Ashley has always been the breadwinner in their relationship). Cunningly the downside of Ike's seemingly comfy life bares itself, he needs Philip - not just as an impressionable young man to whom he can impart his wisdom, as much as Philip needs him, the tension between him and his daughter Melanie (Ritter), the writer's blocks and shrouding loneliness consume his strength, more pragmatically and pathetically he needs Philip to be his wingman if he want to get laid with younger chicks. So, to answer my question, Ike sees himself in Philip, and Philip takes him as a role model, they share the same rotten DNAs. Great writers can inspire epiphany and confer wisdom to readers through their erudite thoughts and conception, one might think they (or at least the really estimable ones) would lead a sensible and judicious life, obviously Perry cannot second that.Introduced by an obtrusively wordy voice-over (Bogosian), continues like a running commentary rambling on the characters' pickles with unapologetically pseudo-intellectual eloquence; shot with hand-held immediacy and close-ups a gogo, LISTEN UP PHILIP is at its worst being too quirky and conceited in its high-brow affectations, while at its best retaining an honest take on a real-life jerk's ups-and-downs, significantly owing to a well-chosen cast, Schwartzman is in his wheelhouse to be mercilessly arrogant and self-centred, which otherwise, accentuates Moss' visceral and layered performance which gratifyingly holds the ground in the finale, and Pryce has been allotted with munificent screen-time to establish Ike as someone whose remorse is as vague as his smugness.In QUEEN OF EARTH, Alex Ross Perry ventures into a more daring and unsettling territory, pairs Moss and Waterston as two life-long friends Catherine and Virginia, but intriguingly pivots around the mental deterioration of Catherine, who has not only recently loses her artist father (in suicide), not also in the opening sequences, breaks up with her longtime boyfriend James (Audley).Immediately the camera takes us to a lake house retreat, which is owned by Virginia's uncle. Catherine is invited by Virginia to stay with her there, to recuperate from the nadir. Then flashbacks and cutaways shows that one year earlier, before Catherine losing those two important men in her life, she and James had also spent their vacation with Virginia in the same place, and the atmosphere was not all that pleasant, the two girls were bickering all the time, throwing snide at each other, do they suppose to be besties?The tranquility doesn't quite work in favour of Catherine, who has no interest in swimming in the lake or jogging in the morning, as if she is struck by some strange lethargy, and the interaction between them is also not wholesome, constantly felt being watched by Virginia, Catherine tip-toes around when she is making phone-calls, their intimate conversations loses its momentum pretty quickly, although, nothing really happens, Catherine becomes increasingly watchful and retreats to herself, especially after the advent of Rich (Fugit), Virginia's man friend lives nearby, whom Catherine and James met also one years before.Imposing a more static strategy of framing, this time, Perry collectedly deploys natural sound (humming, droning, whirring, rustling) and an unsettlingly ambient score from DeWitt as major players in the game, together they suffuse the narrative as a haunting and mythifying undertone, fittingly trace out Catherine's paranoia and slide. After the sly (if not entirely unnecessary) implications of a murder (with a discombobulating cameo from Keith Poulson) and body horror (the pain in the face could lead to an apposite nightmarish scenario when the bones beneath are struggling for emergence), Catherine consummates her meltdown by giving Rich a mind-blowing dressing-down and later a creepy surrender-pleading-seduction combo to further throw herself down to the mental dysfunctional abyss. Moss is unbelievably versatile and emotive here, chilling, disquieting and unforgiving and Waterston proves herself a dab hand of deception and subtlety in her passive-aggressive retribution.That's when Perry cagily divulges the reason behind in the last snippet of flashback, if everything turns out to be a carefully planned revenge, could it justify the entire story? It's a tricky question, but one thing is for sure, QUEEN OF EARTH is a surprising oddity endeavours to fearlessly tap into the boundary and essential compositions of friendship between two (female) friends, and artfully construes its aftermath with a firm sleight-of-hand.

I like movies, all kinds. I've probably seen upwards of 4000 to 4500 movies. Occasionally I like to see a smaller, independent film like this one, it is good to see what types of new approaches are being tried.I found this on Netflix streaming movies. The reviews and comments are all over the place, from "I hated this trash" to "A really fine character study."My own evaluation is somewhere in between the two extremes, it is an interesting experiment but to me fails on most accounts.Elisabeth Moss is Catherine, whose successful and well-known artist father has recently died. She too is an artist, not as accomplished, and has gone into a funk of sorts. To refresh herself she travels to spend a week with her "best friend" at the friend's secluded lake house and do some drawing too.The friend is British actress Katherine Waterston doing a very authentic American accent as Virginia. We really get no backstory and are struck by how severe, judgmental, and uncaring Virginia seems to be. In fact she talks at one point about how she relishes getting people out of her life, including her newborn that we never really find out about.Then there is Patrick Fugit who is the intrusive lake house neighbor Rich. He is good but I hadn't seen him in anything since he was a teenager in "Almost Famous" and seeing him as a 30-something is a bit disconcerting. My fault, not the movie's.Anyway the problem I have with the movie is I never saw the main characters as having realistic conversations and discussions, as normal friends might. I was always aware that they were working off a script that someone wrote. And if the interactions between friends didn't seem real, what does that leave us with? Nothing because there is no big "ah-ha" moment before the ending.I am glad I saw it, I could not recommend it to anyone else.