Hold onto those fireworks and tighten those puppet strings because we are covering the 2019 film, Luce.

Stats

Released: January 2019
Creator: Julius Onah
Adapted from play by: J C Lee
Budget:
Worldwide Gross: 2,200,000

Breakdown and Analysis

  • Premise started off simple but as the movie continues there are more layers and complexity. Luce mentions why does he have to be an angel or a demon. Why can’t he be in between.
  • It felt very Gone Girl. We didn’t mind if Luce was the literal spawn of the devil because we are caught up in his game of cat and mouse with the teacher. You can see many good examples of the push and pull between these two characters.
  • Oti omitted his memory of the ending as to not tarnish his impression of this movie. This is movie is the equivalent of a rum soaked wedding cake.
  • It is universally accepted that the ending of Sopranos was not an ending. And this movie also didn’t have an ending.
  • What is the payoff? We are building to something in this thriller but it failed to deliver. Lots of interesting themes.
  • There are lots of symbols in the movie that we do not get to see come into full fruition. Don’t think we learned his real name. Like Spartacus. It was alluded he was a child soldier, and he knew how to manipulate people. It wasn’t just a dialogue between black and white but also immigration. The interesting intertwining of multiple themes that come together of being black from Ms Wilson and Luce. We come to the scene with Luce coming to her house and sees the graffiti. He comes into the house to be shocked at it. Ms Wilson makes an interesting comment about Luce never being called that before. There’s Luce’s struggle of growing up with so much abuse and trauma and then migrating to America. But there’s also the treatment towards African Americans. These are two completely different experiences but in the view of the world, sadly may be reduced to that graffiti.
  • A broader discussion on adoption and integrating into a new world. All that he had to go through being adopted by a well to do family. Amy was all in but Peter went along with it. This creates a divide between the couple as they are both different. Peter is stern on calling Luce out on his bullshit. Luce could do no wrong in Amy’s eyes. She does not look logic in the face and decides to lie. Sometimes there are truths that we aren’t ready to face. And this was the case with Amy and accepting who Luce might really be.
  • One of Luce’s friends says he is not ‘black black’ and you could see Luce was bothered by this comment. Luce knew what he was doing and was emotionally manipulating everyone to his benefit. For him to have this facade created as how the world wants to see him. He learned to make it easier on other. Let’s disregard on any sense of identity he has just because we can’t pronounce his name. He becomes a blank canvas and formed into what people would expect. At an age where we should be discovering who we are, he had to learn to be in this world. This was made clear to him in not keeping his name.
  • The movie planted the seeds but didn’t come back to water it. Let it germinate.
  • There are different layers to Luce. His experiences form who he became but his manipulation goes beyond that and, to KT he was genuinely a psycho. Amy loved and nurtured as much as she could but sometimes it goes further than that.
  • It is a masterful craft to write a narrative. What we see here is maybe he did try to share what he went through and he saw how his experiences scared people so he learned to pretend and be that perfect adopted migrant son. We needed to know what his motivation was. And this might have been achieved through showing us those years of therapy. His ease of manipulating would have made more sense if the curtain was pulled back and we watched him form.
  • People did not want to acknowledge his past. Because once you deal with it appropriately, comes out a lot of hard truths to digest.
  • We have a hundred questions we want answered. Don’t need to but would be nice but when there are foundational questions that are not being answered, it becomes distracting.
  • What we were hoping to have is all the angst and anger and violence throughout the movie to turn into him fully expressing himself in the final scene. You think you solved the world because I am what you want me to be? At sacrifice of loved ones and years of abuse?
  • There’s no way Luce could play so innocent but always be in proximity of his girlfriend. We don’t get to see much more context in the movie. The girlfriend was being used by Luce as a pawn. There’s a weird moment where she sees Amy through the window and makes it clear she is enjoying it.
  • It was sad seeing the fragments in Amy and Peter’s marriage. To the point of going to his ex Sip and See. The fact that Peter held onto not having their kids for 10 years, his choice words to her were sharp daggers. Don’t commit to something and hold onto 10 years of resentment. Be all in.

Unrelated but vital points

  • Naomi Watts is in a lot of stuff. KT just can’t place her lol
  • There are some actors that are more reliable in quality.
  • If you want to know if you look good in a dress, don’t ask Oti. He is too nice and won’t be honest.
  • Some people were saying Joker was so on the nose but then other people didn’t understand it at all. It is a baby qualm.
  • Oti wants to get
  • Get onto the metric system
  • If you think you can fully protect yourself and your data but live in the modern world, you are wrong lolBlumhouse has an effective model of investing in smaller creators and astronomical payoff

For Your Reference

Oti

[imdb style=”gray”]tt0114369[/imdb]

KT

[imdb style=”gray”]tt1475582[/imdb][imdb style=”gray”]tt2267998[/imdb]