Ashgrove

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source: Ashgrove

Try as I did, I just couldn't get into this film. "Jennifer" (Amanda Brugel) is a top scientist trying (pretty much single handedly, it appears) to save the population from a water toxicity issue that could wipe us all out in five years. She leaves their rural farmhouse suddenly claiming she has the solution, then something happens? What? Well that's what the next seventy minutes try to explain to us, but I found the whole thing so contrived and far-fetched as to beggar belief. Basically, her bosses are concerned for her mental health given all the strain this researching has put her under, so tell her to take a weekend off with husband "Jason" (Jonas Chernick) so she can recuperate. Clearly their marital relationship has been under pressure too, and some of the plot focusses on that and on their visiting friends "Elliot" (Shawn Doyle) and his pregnant wife "Sammy" (Natalie Brown) who add some more domestic melodrama to this otherwise really lacklustre story. The dialogue is really poorly written, the interaction between these people would have to have you question what on Earth they could ever have seen in each other in the first place. Despite the merits of her scientific work, "Jennifer" came across as a complete pain in the neck and he, well he's just a drip! I believe it was the World Premier of this film that I saw at the Glasgow Film festival - not one of my better choices, sorry,

When I sat down to watch the 2022 drama "Ashgrove", I had actually never heard about the movie. And from the movie's cover, I was somehow assuming that this movie was perhaps a thriller of sorts. But with it being a movie that I had never seen, of course I opted to give it a chance. And a chance it got, and I made it about halfway through. Then I just simply tossed the towel into the ring out of sheer and utter boredom. This movie was insanely slow paced and monotonous. It was essentially just a movie about two people trying to deal with relationship problems. And it didn't help much to entertain me that the dialogue was very unappealing and lacking interest, and the characters just didn't strike me as being interesting either. I am sure that the acting performances in "Ashgrove" were fair enough, just a shame that writers Amanda Brugel, Jonas Chernick and Jeremy LaLonde didn't churn out anything worthwhile for the screen. And you know when the movie is starring the people that also wrote the script, then it doesn't usually bode all that well. I have zero intention of returning to watch the rest of "Ashgrove", because it was just simply too much of a boring and pointless ordeal. My rating of director Jeremy LaLonde's 2022 movie "Ashgrove" lands on a two out of ten stars.

A lot in the movie plot makes no sense. If the water is bad in the long term to humans for drinking, how do the fish survive & other life? Is it only humans that are affected by the water toxicity? During the stay at the Farm, she eats lettuce, but that is OK and doesn't poison her and doesn't count against her water intake. Lettuce is made up of lots of water. Is the water not toxic for washing dishes and clothing? How Is it the water used for watering the garden is OK for the plants they eat? Is falling rain also bad for drinking? I wish the idea behind this was more believable. Ocean water unsafe?

Ahh you think a pandemic movie, people dropping like flys chaos on the streets, burning carnage etc err well no and not with ashgrove, big brain virologists aka amanda brugel is the key to saving the world ermm, people dying over drinking water or something, they don't tell us why mmm is it the rain lakes rivers or your local water board, or what about people with wells, that could have been interesting, what we get is a burned out scientist who neds a rest in order to save the world, stress ahh goes to her country farm with hubby for a rest ordered by her boss, (spoiler) with her husband to err rest clear the mind fresh etc for monday, nothing happens, they eat, have friends over, they argue (he had a one night stand some months ago with her bestie) she walks out, psychologist stops her and asks for ten minutes to explain err, brain scientist had blacked out and forgot she had an epiphany moment for a cure when she left, she lost two days or something, basically they had to jog her memory to save the world, so what you see happened twice. Thats it end of film, she remembered after telling her hubby she had an abortion...

Ashgrove made me think. A lot. About many things. How something so vital to your life could kill you. Not enough and you shrivel up, dehydrate. Too much and it becomes toxic and it poisons you. Water, specifically. Marriage, too. The whole film felt organic, familiar. It was shot in chronological order and I loved that because it's not an easy feat. Each interaction was subtle and as I watched I wondered how many things in my own life I brushed aside with good intentions, meaning to deal with later, and never did. I found myself wanting to pay attention so as not to miss a thing. A main theme was remembering. When Jennifer had her "Aha!" moment at the end so did I. It felt interactive. That's never happened to me before. I'm writing this 2 days later because there was so much to take in and yet it was so simple. Kind of like life. Sometimes we can't see the forest for the trees. We must be fully present to keep the balance. Love isn't just an emotion. It's a constant state of being. And sometimes tears can save the world.