Saturday 31st January

Seven Pounds

Director: Gabriele Muccino
Year: 2008
Stars: Will Smith, Rosario Dawson, Woody Harrelson, Michael Ealy, Barry Pepper

This wouldn't have been my first choice of what to watch at the cinema this week (still waiting to see Revolutionary Road, The Wrestler and Valkyrie amongst others), but as a joint agreed-upon decision between 4 of us, it seemed like a fair enough choice. The film is, mostly, quite good.

The story revolves around Will Smith's character, Ben Thomas, and the effect that a really bad accident has on him. Part love story, part redemption story, the film is, at least for the first half, almost entirely unpredictable. This part of the film I enjoyed - I like not knowing where a film is going, and it's good to see something different in that sense. However, as the film carried on it got more and more bogged down in its own story, and by the end it began to feel like one of those films that you've seen before, with some very clanging cliches.

On the bright side, the ending certainly isn't the standard Hollywood ending, which does it redeem it somewhat. However, it is still, perhaps, overly sentimental - just in a different way. The other positive thing about this film is Will Smith - his performance is excellent, and reminded me of why I enjoyed The Fresh Prince of Bel Air so much, back in the day!

Rating: 4 out of 5

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About Me

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I live in Bristol with my husband Dan (who I married in July 2007), my son Joe (born 2012) and daughter Jess (born 2015). I work at UWE (the University of the West of England) in Bristol as a Research and Open Access Librarian. I'm orginally from Exeter, so moving back to Bristol is a bit like coming home - especially as I studied for my undergraduate degree here (also at UWE). I love travelling and movies, although I get to do a lot less of both since the birth of our children. Although we have still managed to fit in holidays to the Isles of Scilly, Chamonix and a summer in California since Joe was born.