"Ultimately Unsatisfying"
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What You Need To Know:
The details in LORNA’S SILENCE are sometimes unclear, and the ending is anti-climactic, open ended and unsatisfying. Also, the characters are not appealing, although Lorna eventually tries to do the right thing. Her moral awakening is marred, however, by a humanist worldview that leads to the movie’s open-ended, unsatisfying last scene. LORNA’S SILENCE also includes brief excessive nudity and brief foul language.
Content:
(HH, B, L, V, S, NNN, A, DD, MM) Strong humanist worldview with some moral elements, including a pro-life message, but heroine’s situation remains precarious and open-ended in the last scene; four obscenities (including one “f” word) and no profanities; light violence includes implied murder, attempted murder and woman runs away from captor intent on killing her to shut her up; implied fornication and kissing; shots of upper female nudity and total frontal female nudity in one scene, plus brief upper male nudity; alcohol use; smoking and drug references; and, lying, criminal activity, illegal immigration, covering up crimes, and unwed woman gets pregnant.
More Detail:
LORNA’S SILENCE is a Belgian crime drama about a young Eastern European woman involved in a deadly immigration scam. It is a character-driven drama with an open-ended ending.
Lorna is a young Albanian immigrant living in Belgium. She and her boyfriend Sokol, a migrant worker, want to open a snack bar, so she pretends to be married to a recovering drug addict named Claudy to get her Belgian citizenship. As part of the plan, however, the mobster who hired Lorna wants to give Claudy a fatal drug overdose, so that the mobster can sell his Belgian identity papers to a Russian mobster. This diabolical scheme is upset when Lorna begins to feel sympathetic toward Claudy. Will the mob boss and her boyfriend be able to keep Lorna in line and maintain her silent cooperation? A plot twist in the third act further complicates the issue.
The details in the criminal scheme and the dialogue in LORNA’S SILENCE are sometimes unclear. Also, Claudy is at times annoying, demanding or whiny, so Lorna’s change in attitude does not seem completely believable. Finally, there’s no real chemistry or background story to her and her boyfriend’s relationship. All this leads to an anti-climactic, unsatisfying ending that’s open ended.
Part of the problem with this movie may be that, while Lorna’s efforts to save Claudy from being murdered are certainly morally commendable, the movie’s depressing humanist elements undercut any feelings of inspiration that viewers may glean from such morality. That’s because, in the final analysis, morality has to have a transcendent, eternal foundation, and the God of the Bible is the best way humanity has found for such a foundation. Ultimately, the heroine in this movie, Lorna, is a lost soul because she has no religious foundation to focus her morality, but the movie’s humanist worldview seems to prevent that conclusion from even being a possibility.
At the end of LORNA’S SILENCE, Lorna is a creature lost alone in a wilderness without God, and there is little hope of deliverance other than her own human will. A better filmmaker, especially one with a spiritual foundation resting on God, could have taken this story and dug deeper. As it is, however, LORNA’S SILENCE is ultimately unimpressive and depressing rather than inspiring and provocative. Its award from the 2008 Cannes Film Festival for best screenplay is perplexing.
LORNA’S SILENCE also contains brief excessive nudity and brief foul language.
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Now more than ever we’re bombarded by darkness in media, movies, and TV. Movieguide® has fought back for almost 40 years, working within Hollywood to propel uplifting and positive content. We’re proud to say we’ve collaborated with some of the top industry players to influence and redeem entertainment for Jesus. Still, the most influential person in Hollywood is you. The viewer.
What you listen to, watch, and read has power. Movieguide® wants to give you the resources to empower the good and the beautiful. But we can’t do it alone. We need your support.
You can make a difference with as little as $7. It takes only a moment. If you can, consider supporting our ministry with a monthly gift. Thank you.
Movieguide® is a 501c3 and all donations are tax deductible.
