Things Heard And Seen: (L-R) James Norton, as George Clare, Amanda Seyfried as Catherine Clare. We’re thrown so many bits and pieces of who she is, but we never really have an opportunity to know anything clearly , let alone understand her.Īnd without at least understanding her a bit, it’s hard to root for her, which is a kiss of death for a protagonist in a story. Her eating disorder, her career ambition, her initial ambivalence towards motherhood, and her reticence towards marriage are all hinted at, but therein lies the problem. She’s the person in the house who feels the most connection with the ghosts/former women of the house, and the film hints that there are a multitude of complexities simmering underneath the surface, impacting and fracturing her marriage to George. Much of the story is supposed to hinge on Catherine. Related Better Call Saul Season 6 Episode 12 Review: Waterworks Seyfried’s developed into a fine actress since her All My Children and Veronica Mars days and her expressive face helps the proceedings, but Catherine’s written with little to no character development. One of the primary flaws of the film can be traced to Amanda Seyfried’s Catherine. Murray Abraham, as Floyd DeBeers, in Things Heard and Seen. Things Heard and Seen (L-R) Amanda Seyfried as Catherine Clare, F. The film’s beginning is promising, but it gets weaker and weaker as it plods along, completely falling apart by the end of its 2 hour runtime, with an inane, self congratulatory ending (excuse me while I roll my eyes at how smart the directors want us to think they are). What may have worked on the page really doesn’t work here.
The art history element has potential, but never takes off, largely because it requires significant context to fully thread things together. It fares better when it touches on the Claires’ marriage and specifically when it starts to dissect George’s (James Norton) duplicitousness and personal myth-making. It attempts to be both a Gothic-esque psychological horror and a marriage melodrama.
Matters are complicated even further when you consider that Things Heard and Seen has two main themes or storylines. Part of this has to do with the basic elements of Things Heard and Seen, particularly the history of the Hudson Valley (a character in and of itself) and the heavy art history symbolism and imagery.īoth of these require rich exposition and background to be fully understood, and while the film does its best to telegraph key information, there’s only so far it can go. Others, like The Queens Gambit, elevate the material, and then there are adaptations like Things Heard and Seen, which never comes together in its film form as it does on the page. Some, like To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, perfectly capture and expound upon their source material. Cinematic adaptations of novels are always interesting to follow.
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