'Losing Alice' Review: Hugely ambitious in its undertaking of different tones but works for the most part

A Potpourri of Vestiges Review

By Amartya Acharya


How much can you afford to lose yourself for the sake of perfection in art?

That is the question which Sigal Avin tries to answer in her 8 episode series “Losing Alice”. Headlined by Ayelet Zurer (Munich, Angels and Demons, Daredevil), Avin’s story follows Alice Ginor (Zurer), a 47 year old female film director who becomes with young and seemingly talented 24 year old screenwriter Sophie Marciano, who has crafted a story which makes Alice recontextualize and ultimately abandon moral integrity for relevance which has eluded her ever since her last great movie years ago.

At its core, Losing Alice is about ambition, about relevance, and how much that relevance is the currency in which the entire entertainment industry rests on. Alice’s husband David, is an aging film actor who now has to take riskier roles for and is in search of validation and again relevance. Sophie is an ambitious screenwriter with a shady part who knows how much of a goldmine of a story she has, but can’t really trust herself not to have control over the narrative because she is afraid of losing relevance.

All of these complex emotions is wrapped in a story which is structured like a neo-noir, complete with gorgeous cinematography, pulsating and eerie background score, and editing the sequence of events in such a way that the viewer is forced to wonder how much of the film Alice herself is shooting is bleeding over with the reality of the entire situation. This bleed of reality causes Alice to have trust issues, which is compounded by Sophie’s mercurial and volatile nature, framing her as a femme fatale. 

Losing Alice has tons of ideas, is hugely ambitious in its undertaking of different tones, and it works for the most part. The pacing does become sluggish at moments, the miniseries in the middle feels like visually splendid with not much happening, and at parts its focus on hallucinatory and shock moments does feel jarring but again as a binge Losing Alice works, its kinks slowly irons out, in large part due to the bravura performance by Zurer as Alice, and Lihi Kornowski as Sophie. Their chemistry is what drives this broth of different tones to a simmering conclusion.

Losing Alice is currently streaming on Apple TV +.

Rating: 8/10

Readers, please feel free to share your opinion by leaving your comments. As always your valuable thoughts are highly appreciated!



People who liked this also liked...
Share on Google Plus

0 comments:

Post a Comment

Thanks for sharing for valuable opinion. We would be delighted to have you back.