Columbus (2017)

Columbus is written and directed by Kogonada, and it stars John Cho and Haley Lu Richardson. In this movie, Jin (Cho) is a Korean-born man that has to travel to Columbus, Indiana after his father went into a coma. During his time there, he meets a young American woman named Casey (Richardson), and they both form a connection.

You want to talk about a disappointment? After seeing its Tomatometer score at 97%, and then reading the reviews that called it one of the best movies of 2017, I took that as a positive sign. And yesterday, I saw a Facebook post of someone really raving about it. So I commented on it, saying "I'll be watching that tomorrow". I wanted to believe that guy's word on it, and I really had high hopes for this movie. So as you can see where this is going, I just never felt connected with the majority of Columbus. And it's a shame, because it just got added on Hulu, which meant that I didn't have to spend $5 on an iTunes rental. I don't know what happened, you guys. It just didn't click with me like I was hoping it would. It's not like it was a terrible film. The actors are very strong, and I really liked the choices on the directing and cinematography. I think the pace of the story was moving too slow for me, and it wasn't catching my attention consistently. I literally had to pause the movie about 8 or 9 times, because I had other things I was thinking about or doing that this couldn't pull me away from. And it's not like the story or screen writing was bad. It just lacked that element of engagement that I wanted to feel.

I want my indie romance films to connect with me and make me care about the characters and what they're going through. It was like they were missing that part, at least in my opinion. It's not a bad film, but it was a disappointing one that I really wanted to like more than I do.

Eh, it happens.

Score: 49/100

Recommendation: Any fans of indie romance films will have better luck with the story than I did.

Fmovies: The cinematography and music is as architectural as Columbus, Ohio. Every image is focused on and framed by the architecture present. This beautifully emphasizes the thing that brings the two leads together. While it isn't necessarily a shared interest, architecture becomes a means to discuss what ails their lives. They come to compliment each other, in their differences. They are both very real, honest, open characters. The dialog asks the big questions: Is work more important than family? Is family more important than going after your dreams? The characters play with these ideas and confide in each other's different experiences.

This movie is written, directed, and shot in the most architecturally stunning way. The performances are natural and honest. All around this is a must see. I cannot recommend it enough.

This just may be the most beautiful movie I have ever seen. However, I am biased. My life is extremely similar to Casey's. It's uncanny. I found a friend in Casey's struggles and in Jin's point of view. The cinematography and soundtrack are pregnant with melancholic tension, but with a hint of light. This is present in a ray of sun in the background, a bird's song, the shuffling of green leaves, or even a yellow shirt. Columbus, Indiana is an unexpected architectural diamond and Columbus the film is an unexpected pearl encompassing all that it is to be confused, afraid, angry, and stuck-but also all that it means to find someone who can awaken a fire in your passions, or even just point you towards something you know you need because sometimes we don't trust ourselves. I loved this movie with every fiber of myself. It's not for everyone, but it's worth the watch.

Columbus fmovies. 'Love story that involves not just human relationships but relationships between architecture' was its clunky presentation to Australian audiences. That would usually be enough to turn me off. But I needed soothing after the toxic excesses of 'Mulholland Drive', wheeled out again the same US movie festival.

Glad I gave it a spin. It very much moves at its own pace, but gets places in the end. Thoughtful M-F dialogue in beautiful settings almost lends this a Before Sunrise/Sunset vibe. But the different touch is that the man and woman are helping each other through to life's next staging posts, rather more so than falling for each other.

She cares too much about her mother. He too little for his father. The director actually includes a dialogue that states this central proposition directly. That too would usually be a turnoff, but is less so here given the genuine credits built up by then. Haley Lu Richardson, doing quite a different character to her recent turn in Edge of 17, shows an actorly maturity beyond her years.

"Meth and modernism are really big here." Casey (Haley Lu Richardson)

If you need an example of a modern art film, look no further than the Columbus film of Korean director Kogonada. It's a minimalist treatment of familial interaction and non-sexual intimacy worthy of Richard Linklater in his early Sunrise franchise. Its greatest achievement is bonding architecture with humanity so that the former becomes a character itself.

As for the light tone of the opening quote, Columbus the film, in an act of humane tenderness, never makes fun of the people or the city.

Korean Jin (John Cho) meets Casey in small town Columbus, Indiana. Although it feels a bit like a clichéd cow town, contrarily it has some of the best modernist architecture in the USA just as the couple deal with modern challenges as they blend their millennial dysfunctions with the seriousness of love and death. He is visiting his comatose architect father while she is fighting with herself to stay at home and tend to addicted mother while a university offering her fulfillment for her architectural enthusiasm is trying to tear her away.

Although the two are developing love that is chaste and from afar, their conversation gradually takes on depth mirrored in the growing presence of buildings from the likes of Deborah Berke, Eero Saarinen, and James Stewart Polshek, a conjunction of the real and almost ethereal, as several of the stunningly stark, simple and transparent buildings reflect. That the director chooses to shoot a whole scene in a mirror, and others briefly is a tribute to the interest he has in appearance and reality and the importance of place.

This intensely and immaculately filmed indie is a fitting declaration of the melancholy unity between living lovers and dynamic architecture. Enjoy the view and dialogue; movie-making doesn't need to offer more.

The quiet indie drama "Columbus" won't win over many mainstream moviegoers, but cinema academic-turned-filmmaker Kogonada has crafted a visually immaculate feature debut that can be compared to little else.

As artistically distinctive as the film may be, the story will feel familiar: A man named Jin (John Cho) ends up in the rural town of Columbus, Indiana when his father goes into a coma and meets a young woman named Casey (Haley Lu Richardson) unable to uproot herself from this modern architecture mecca. Their collision of perspectives as they tour her favorite buildings and learn about each other's challenges and hopes makes up the reflective heart of the narrative.

Yet there's a third obvious character in this story and that's Columbus. Not its people or culture, but its structures. Kogonada makes the presence of this setting palpable in most every shot. As we follow Jin and Casey from location to location, even the ones not designed by skilled architects, we're given time to absorb their surroundings, which may make us feel something that influences our perspective on the story. As the characters take in these thoughtfully designed structures, so do we. Imagine watching a play in an art museum - that's the best way to describe the dual artistic nature of "Columbus."

The choices Kogonada and cinematographer Elisha Christian make with the camera and lighting prove to be everything in this film. The calculation, symmetry and blocking show a meticulous amount of thought, detail and planning. Every shot is its own portrait, as though the film is a 100-minute contemporary art exhibition. Some portraits will move you more than others. Plus, there's the additional layer of how that portrait influences not just the viewer's perception, but the story unfolding.

Kogonada doesn't care much for plot specifics, and to a degree that fences us off from these characters because we can only invest so deeply in their personal conflicts, but the portraits of Jin and especially Casey are extensive enough that we have plenty to observe and react to in the film. Richardson's performance stands out the most in the way she continues to wrestle with her guarded nature and self-prescribed future and begins to lose a grip on her emotional control.

Foremost, "Columbus" is a reflective viewing experience. With almost no film score, we're not meant to get enthralled by the film so much as bring our attention to it and experience it in this visual, contemplative way. It requires an appreciation for the craft of creating a frame to be sure, but it's good enough that it might make some new film appreciation "students" out of more casual indie film fans.

~Steven C

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