Eye of the Beholder | | Cast : | Ewan McGregor, Ashley Judd | | Director : | Stephan Elliott | | Studio : | Columbia/Tristar Studios | | Format : | Color, Closed-captioned, Full Screen, Dolby | | Released Date : | January 28, 2000 | | DVD Released Date : | June 01, 2004 | | Language : | French (Subtitled), English (Dubbed), English (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled), English (Original Language) | | Audience Rating : | R (Restricted) | | | BUY THIS DVD FROM AMAZON |
Customer Reviews
| Rating |  | | Date | June 15, 2005 | | Summary | Behold | Content
 | I think that a lot of people want to be lead along with a catchy sexy story line, and lots of action where stuff is always blowing up. When it comes to a movie with some real substance a lot of people are left in the dust. Look a little deaper into this movie before ranting about how bad it sucks. It seems to me that the people that have left bad reviews seem to be the people that don't seem to get much out of any movie of substance. If you looking for a shallow movie ... much like a lot of the people that posted, don't watch this. |
| Rating | | | Date | June 02, 2005 | | Summary | A real let-down from Priscilla, Queen of the Desert | Content
| I have a slight advantage writing this review as the DVD with the director's commentary is playing in the background. Apparently this was based on 40's style pulp fiction he read while filming Priscilla and decided immediately that it would be his next film.
It took 7 years to get the financing, asking for a $20 million budget he ended up with $11 million and financed much of it himself. That alone should put up warning lights.
The cast has little to work with. Almost the entire film is made in Montreal in winter and edited to death. There is even an entire scene of Ewan McGregor in drag that is just barely visible if you follow the director's commentary on the DVD version. The film itself is so low budget that he fills in as a double for several characters on several scenes and Ashley Judd's wardrobe was nearly a third of the ENTIRE budget.
The premise is that a man called the eye (McGregor) who is some sort of technical spy is so wrapped up in his job that he doesn't even realize his wife has left with his daughter for weeks. She's apparently gone several years and he is still not quite right in the head over it when he is assigned to follow the Ashley Judd character. For some reason he becomes obsessed with her to the point of helping her cover her tracks as a serial murderer.
The plot becomes absurd as his obsession deepens and the police begin to catch up with her. When he reveals himself and she betrays him it is almost as if the writer and director didn't know what to do and the movie just ends leaving nothing resolved and no questions answered.
Beholder is about obsession and loss and the slow loss of reason and the ability to see beyond what is right in front of you. It is a spiral into a strange psychosis shared by 2 people as seen from the opposing ends of a spyglass.
If you are into film noir and would like to try something diffent than the usual popcorn thriller this is an ok movie. If you just want entertainment without having to think about what is or isn't happening then don't get this, it definetly won't appeal to you. |
| Rating | | | Date | April 10, 2005 | | Summary | BEAUTY IS IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER | Content
| Is it just me or do you hust want to strangle Ashley Judd's character. That is just one of the worst people I ever evr seen on a film. So if that was the meaning behind the character Ashley Judd did a great job. As far as Ewan Mcgregor goes he did an excellent job as the eye.
As soon as he begins to track her he falls into a love/obbession with her.he even quits his job so he can countinue to follow her. He even saves her life an occation the best part comes when she is working in a dinner and the cops are on to her. Her teacher even sets her up, but lucky for her eye is there to save her again.
The film it's self is some what of a strech, but writer/director Stephan Elliott did come up with a great consept thow. As far as the movie it's self he did a good job with it, not an award winner but good none the less. |
| Rating | | | Date | November 25, 2004 | | Summary | Unbelievably BAD | Content
| To give this film one star hurts - Where to begin? Although there may be worse films, this one has moments of promise and then falls flat (to put it kindly). A few times when the story seems to be developing, either nothing happens or it cuts to something that has nothing to do with anything. HUH!? It's like one big promise that fails to deliver. The story is disjointed and the editing is jarring. I saw this film in the theaters (and like the joke goes, I didn't care about the money spent, I just wanted my two hours back...) and both when the end credits started rolling and when the credits ended and the lights came on, people had a confused expression ("What just happened here...?") and were shaking their heads, asking whoever they were with, "Huh?". |
| Rating | | | Date | November 14, 2004 | | Summary | Exemplifies Ashley Judd's stubborn refusal to play likeable. | Content
| Whew!! What a determination to make all the wrong movies. Ashley Judd plays in this the apparent routine female companion of a government official that a certain "Eye" (played by Ewen McGregor) is assigned to watch. But the "Eye"'s assignment quickly ends prematurely. For Joanna Eris (Judd's character) out of a clear blue sky and without warning takes out a knife and stabs the subject of the "Eye"'s assignment, killing him. Soon thereafter Ashley will go outside and quite literally show her behind. Love that or hate it, its entire significance will utterly pale in comparison to the way that Ashley Judd has an obsessive determination for figuratively showing her behind in this, like most every role she plays. Joanna Eris seems to have never done a pleasant or good thing in her life and apparently never will. Still the movie doesn't make her a villain, but somebody we're apparently supposed to somehow sympathize with, showing vaguely some inadequate explanation of her background and how it supposedly made her the monster she is. Having Ashley Judd play her makes it all the more lurid, as there is a parallel between Joanna's stubbornly entrenched but poorly explained evil and Judd's stubbornly entrenched but poorly explained determination to play unlikeable roles that figuratively (and sometimes less importantly but literally) show her behind. Ashley Judd must certainly prescribe to a dogma that that which comes out of her behind does not stink. But even more exasperatingly, on a figurative level, she seems to have an obsessive fixation on an attitude that the cinematic venom that comes out of her obsessive choice of lurid movie roles doesn't stink. By the way, the movie gets no better from the point where she stabs the man. He is probably not her first victim, and by no means her last within the course of the movie. The Eye, rather than clearly relaizing that his assignment has come to a premature end, starts trailing Joanna Eris, like she immediately became the object of his affections! Hence the movie's title, I would suppose. But it doesn't really designate anything worth watching. See if you must to satisfy your curiosity. But be warned: there is nothing really worthwhile to get out of how these morbid obsessions of characters and/or performers play out! |
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