I'd never heard about Wondrous Oblivion before getting my screener in the mail.
Sometimes you end up making a lot of assumptions about a movie based on it's cover art and it's title. That was true in this case. Assumptions were made, and for better or worse, after finishing the movie they had all turned out to be correct.
It looks like there is a small graphic of the cover art on Spout. You may be able to see what I mean. It's one of those "feel good" movies that are supposed to be life affirming. Oh yes, there will be lessons to learn about bigotry and what it means to be human. There will be drama, but things will be happy. You know one of those movies.
But too often, such as in this case, those movies don't stand out in anyway. If you really want to make me feel affected by or care for any of the characters, give them some real quirks like real people. All the characters were pretty bland here. And as far as plot developments, there were absolutely NO surprises. Every character ended up doing exactly what you'd expect them to, I mean in the low expectations of a movie type of way.
Let me also say that it is hard to find fault with this movie because it's really not pretentious. It obviously wants to explore some social issues, and it's method isn't particularly inventive or inspired, but it doesn't slap you in the face with anything too hard or make you feel terribly manipulated. Even though all of the elements are places very deliberately and it is obvious, none of them stick out in a way that is too annoying.
I wonder if I would have enjoyed this movie a bit more if I had known anything about cricket. The movie never really explains what the goal of the game is or how to play. I guess they are assuming most people who would see this movie would already know since it was made in the UK where it takes place. But there were some times when I was confused about the emotion of the scene because of being so uninformed about the game. For instance there is a sequence where the main character David Wiseman (played by Sam Smith) continues to hit the ball successfully over and over and has to keep running back and forth. However all of his teammates look extremely bored or pissed off. I thought hitting the ball would be good, but now I wasn't sure. I figure it must have meant one of several things. Either hitting the ball so much like that is a bad way to play the game. Or he was doing well and the rest of his team for some reason was pissed that he was doing well or bored and didn't care about the game and just wanted it to end. Or another and also very likely possibility is that all of his teammates were just so British and proper that they couldn't expend that much emotion reacting.
Another thing that makes the movie kind of bland is that all of the conflicts seem to get resolved so easily and unbelievably in the end. All of the bigoted characters who seem to have been that way for their whole lives suddenly embrace those that they had previously looked down on for the whole movie at the end. The adulterous situation between Ruth (played by Emily Woof) and Dennis (Delroy Lindo) disappears. People deeply slighted accept apologies quickly. The maladjusted kid who sucks beyond belief at cricket learns to be one of the best within a matter of weeks. People change and grow up so quick. Hey, I'm not saying that these things don't happen. They do, and when they do it's what life is all about. But it was all too easy. And there wasn't enough depth and drama to give them any real impact.
If you want a pleasant movie about different types of pleasant people in a neighborhood coming together and learning to accept each other, and you know how the hell to play cricket, then you may get a little kick out of this movie. However if I had to watch to watch another movie like this any time soon, I would be getting bored real quick.
Rating: 5/10