Sundance Movie Review: Unmade Beds

I haven't had time to write more than one review in the last 48 hours, which is a big problem because it means that I have a handful of films to write up in the next couple hours or I'll be two or three days behind. The biggest problem with Sundance is that there isn't enough time. You're either seeing movies or partying or both and sleep and everything else gets consolidated into a space which is too small to really mean anything. And it doesn't help that I've been sick the last two days. So I'm going to try to keep some of these short.

Alexis Dos Santos made a splash with his debut indie feature Glue, and Unmade Beds is his follow-up. A quirky story that follows the stories of Axl and Vera, both of whom live in a London warehouse together, although their paths never cross until fate deems it necessary.Axl finds his long-lost father, who is now a Realtor, and pretends to be a student looking for an apartment. As their relationship develops, Axl finds himself unable to confront his father with the truth. Vera is trying move on from a recent break-up. When she meets an interesting stranger, she decides to forgo the regular "getting to know each other back and fourth", and they instead enter into an anonymous game where neither of them can reveal anything real about themselves.Santos has a lot of great conceptual ideas, a great visual style, and an ear for great music (the soundtrack is incredibly hip). But the film loses much from it's lack of structure and story. I am confident that Alexis Dos Santos could be a new visionary once he matures as a storyteller. But for right now, I can't recommend Unmade Beds to everyone because it might be too slow for most. But the art house crowd should check it out, because there is a lot about the film to like.

/Film Rating: 6.5 out of 10