Charlie Countryman (2013) - Fredrik Bond

Shortly after the death of Charlie Countryman's mother, he has a vision in which she tells him to go to Bucharest.  Being someone who hasn't exactly "found himself", Charlie immediately boards a plane across the Atlantic.  On his flight he meets a fellow passenger, who dies mid-flight, with Charllie promising to meet his daughter and deliver a message.  This leads Charlie to fall head over heels in love with the man's daughter, Gabi, although her ex-husband, a vicious gangster, has no intention of letting her go.  Fredrik Bond's Charlie Countryman is a unique love story that doesn't quite achieve its intended dramatic weight.  The film moves so fast, with an intoxicating effect but it never managers to reach its intended emotional impact.  It's hard to pin down exactly but it could be the films lack of quiet moments where the audience is aloud into these characters' psyche.  Charlie and Gabi are two interesting character who share similar afflictions and I wish the film would spent more time capturing that, exploring how the two of them have no real sense of home.  Charlie Countryman is a visceral experience, with lots of subjective direction and a wide ranging color palette which make the film come to life.  That being said the film's style can be a bit much especially the over-abundance of music which at times make Charlie Countryman feel more like a music video than a feature film.  Fredrik Bond's Charlie Countryman is a visual treat but the film is a bit of hodgepodge tonally, being a blend of romance, thriller, comedy, and existential drama that never quite blends together as well as it should.
6/10

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