Director:
Writer:
Stars:
‘Violet’ follows “Violet Morton,” a 32 year-old film executive who is living her life listening to this “Voice,” resulting in fear-based decisions. She has made these decisions to avoid potential “worst-case scenarios” in her romantic life, her family life, and her professional life, and they have taken her away from who she really is. She has grown accustomed to this, to not being quite “herself,” and sees nothing amiss, until a friend’s comment makes her realize that The Voice has been lying to her.
This highly stylized and edited film about self love may work if not bogged down by it’s headache inducing editing. Olivia Munn plays Violet, and the voice ha plagued her her entire life. The Voice is Justin Theroux and is a harsh, dominant, and cruel voice insisting how unworthy of appreciation and general kindness Violet is. It interrupts every aspect of the film from the dialogue to the editing itself, stenciling in cursive words of hate unavoidable on screen. This is a very specific style that is commendable however I could not stand it in my opinion.
Olivia Munn is good in her role but is completely overshadowed by The Voice, not in the sense that he is a better performance but the film dismisses Violet at every step. The constant interruptions from The Voice drove me nuts, It was like you were sitting with someone who constantly was talking loudly over the movie about something else.
Eventually the film starts to subside from the bombardment of voiceover and delves more into Munn’s character. Violet gets some great moments of mental clarity and voicing her opinions and being brave, but by this point we are well into the third act, and have spent so much time waiting for it that it doesn’t feel as impactful as it could have.
Overall, ‘Violet’ is a mess of a film with incoherent editing and a swing for the fences style. There is some good acting here but the bold choices handicap my enjoyment of the story and instead just wished it would end.
