Finding Ophelia

all at once a mystery romance, a ghost story and a lysergic chase movie... It is a strange, looping affair, low on dialogue, soporific even, despite all the mannered filmmaking tics, and it may just send the viewer off to sleep, perchance to dream.

Strangely watchable.

Finding Ophelia may look pretty, but its running time feels too long for the story it wants to tell which may leave audiences unsatisfied.

Unfortunately the writing and acting are less considerably less sophisticated than his audiovisual aesthetics...it is definitely recommended for those who enjoy movies with a strong element of psychedelia.

Stephen Rutterford's tedious, belabored psychodrama opens with three solid minutes of abstract water imagery, and it doesn't get any less obtuse from there.

Though it borrows its title from Hamlet, Finding Ophelia seems more intent on embodying a memorable line from Macbeth: it is a tale full of sound and fury signifying nothing.

Finding Ophelia may seem like a run of the mil story about a man slowly losing his mind and his grasp of reality. But the Fantasy and Horror elements raise the stakes and the whole journey ends up feeling like a provocative descent to hell.

If Rutterford had been confident enough to keep things simple, he could have had a real winner on his hands here.

This would actually make for an interesting movie if writer-director-cinematographer-film editor Stephen Rutherford was more interested in telling his story that displaying his visual and auditory mastery.

Undeniably gorgeous visuals without a compelling emotional core to ground them.