This film directed by Fernando Meirelles and written by Canadian Don McKellar opens in wide release on October 3rd, 2008.The film is an adaptation of the famous novel, which I have not read and has a pretty good cast: Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo, Danny Glover, Alice Braga and even Gael Garcia Bernal.
The story begins when people in a non-descript large city begin to go blind. The isolated incidences become an epidemic.
Julianna Moore and Mark Ruffalo (he plays an eye doctor) are a husband and wife team. The husband becomes blind, whereas the wife doesn't. She pretends to be blind so that she can be with him as he gets put into an asylum with other blind folks.
The movie then goes the way of The Lord of Flies, where cliques are created, and food becomes more scarce. Tensions rise. Little to no help from the outside the outside city. It seems that the entire city has been abandoned after a while.
Anyways, the story goes on and there is a hopeful ending. Unfortunately, this movie is just so damn bleak and dark, it's hard to get into it. It's dreary color pallette even make the film boring to look at.
Essentially, this movie is not about everyone going blind, but rather it's about the one woman that can see. We're used to seeing Julianne Moore give so much of herself to other roles, but I just didn't buy her performance here. Perhaps it's the fault of the writing, but I didn't believe her actions, and when she took them.
This film was made by the same guy that did City of God and The Constant Gardener, both of which we love. What makes those stories so interesting is that they are about characters put into horrible situations. They then go on to make larger socio-political points.
Unfortunately, Blindness is more about a horrible situation with some characters in it. As a result, the film ends up being cold and trite.
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