Don't get me wrong, it's a beautiful movie. The black-and-white 1920s cinematography is gorgeous. The production design and costumes for the 20s and 70s are both fantastic. The look of the movie and the music are mesmerizing. The final fifteen minutes especially of the stop motion dioramas are magical. The kids are great actors too. Where I didn't love the movie: I don't think the plot quite paid off enough given how slowly it built up. I think it'd have difficulty holding the attention of the kids it was meant for. But it might seem a little too kiddie for the adults that might appreciate the artistry of it. Rose's story and Ben's story are obviously headed for a collision. And they do. The parallels are clear. But we could've gotten just Ben's story without Rose's and we wouldn't really have lost anything because Rose's story is not relevant to understanding Ben's. In that sense, they don't quite collide enough. What I do love is the New York story. New York is a beautiful city with a beautiful history and beautiful institutions. It's a piece imagining the city in the context of real history: the World's Fair, the Blackout of 77. It does a lot of things right--it's just not as enjoyable as I had hoped.
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