Brief Story Line
The Gunawan family that consisted of housewife Milla (Marissa Anita - Perempuan Tanah Jahanam, Air Mata Buaya etc), her successful husband Jonathan (Dion Wiyoko - Imperfect, Falling in Love Like in Movies etc), their teenaged child Angel (Mima Shafa) and Jon's mother Liliana (Widyawati - Sabar Ini Ujian, Sweet 20 etc) were living together in their large & beautiful house. From the outside they looked like a harmonious family, but Milla was actually having a bit of stress.
One day rash started appearing on her body that made Milla felt even more depressed as they were getting ready for Liliana's big birthday party. Things gotten more complicated with the appearance of make up artist Erica (Gisella Anastasia - Cek Toko Sebelah etc) who would have major implication on Gunawan family.
So how would the story conclude? You could find out in this movie.
End of Brief Story Line
To be honest, I was interested in watching this as I thought it was a psychological thriller movie. From the opening sequence, I already could see that it was going to be slow burn which I did not mind as it was not uncommon for such genre. As the story progressed and the main plot shown, I was quite curious in knowing the reason behind the mysterious rash. However, I was a bit bothered by the acting of few of the cast who sometime did not seem natural enough.
Things actually became more interesting with the appearance of Erica. But after a while it was clear that her character would become the very standard type which was rather disappointing. Actually for me, the movie would have been better to finish half hour before the end cause beyond that it went downhill and became too weird. And that ending was just not satisfying as it did not provide proper conclusion. Just the depressed feeling after watching this. The duration of 110 minutes (without any mid/post end credit scene) did not exactly help either as it made the movie felt overly long. Frankly I wanted to like and enjoy this one cause being Indonesian, I am delighted if it is of qood quality with unusual genre. Sadly this one did not fit into the category at least for me (not sure about critics opinion though).
The three lead cast of Marissa, Dion and Widyawati gave decent performance here. In addition to those I mentioned above, there were plenty of support or minor cast such as Sari Koeswoyo (Tira TV series etc) as the maid Irah, Aida Nurmala (Arisan! etc) and Kiki Narendra (Kabut Berduri etc) as owner of Life Magazine Mr. & Mrs. Nugros respectively and several others. The movie itself was directed by Lucky Kuswandi (Galih & Ratna remake, Dear David etc) and written by him together with Andri Cung (director of Kenapa Harus Bule?, The Sun, The Moon, & The Hurricane etc). With such pedigree, I could understand why this movie felt artistic which probably would be better received by those looking for such attributes.
In the end, this film was not exactly the commercial kind. It was not a psychological thriller but more like a drama with psychological background. I felt the film had a very strong message that appearance is not everything, but unfortunately in the current society and social media dominating our lives, it was unavoidable. The idea was good, however the execution was not to my liking which resulted difficulty in enjoying the movie as a whole, especially with the weird and unsatisfying conclusion. I did like the lovely visual and the make up & special effects and I admired the courage of the movie makers to create something like this. So if you are OK with attributes that I highlighted and do not mind the shortcomings, then you could give it a try. Who knows you might be able to capture the essence better than me.
Mike's movie moments rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars
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