AbundantDay I found the movie thought provoking. I didn't enjoy his relationships that didn't work. Yet one lady encouraged him to be more and another one encouraged him to be himself, despite his success in a position with her dad. What I enjoyed was that it made me think about the importance of doing what we desire, rather than what we're good at or what we're successful at. I also didn't mind that there were lots of close ups of Mr Beautiful. I didn't find it too much since he was easy on the eyes. I also thought they did a nice job of transitioning the main character's image from a student to a businessman. I didn't think it was a great movie but it does have an important message. It was timely for me. The movie kept my attention and got the point across.

Knox D Alford III (knoxiii) Rather than subject yourself to this train wreck of a movie, I recommend doing a chore you absolutely abhor. This way you will accomplish something & not waste 80 minutes of life on this meandering movie. Cleaning gutters immediately comes to mind. Rose McIver is a beautiful young actress that has yet to find a movie to do her justice. This had the screen time, but little else to forward her career. Chris Lowell wants desperately to be Jake Gylenhall, but aside from few physical similarities (good looks, not one of them) he epically fails. His acting was plain awful. He exuded energy that made you wish you were anywhere else. The script may have called for a confused young man, but he came across as an arrogant guy in real life trying to quash that arrogance in pursuing his futile attempt to convey other emotions. Plus, few things grate on one's nerves like an arrogant actor with no talent or reason to be so. The story felt like a folded up tent, many lines of direction jumbled into a fantastic mess. There were no redeeming qualities to be found, and I looked quite intently & thoroughly. I rate it 2/10 stars because Rose McIver is beautiful & I feel sorry that she was in this movie versus almost any other. She was cheated, and hopefully she will bounce back & achieve her potential. There was no brightness to this star except the wonderful release I felt when it ended. Be warned, watching this in it's entirety may give even pacifists the desire to hurt something or someone. I've done my best to be fair & mild in this review. Knox D. Alford, III

Dove Spirit I found the movie awesome to watch. Unlike the previous review of it, I am struck by Chris Lowell's face and thought that it was used well.I say this because I found Chris well able to convey strong emotion just by looks in his eyes and the expression on his face. His eyes and face said it all and there was no need for dialog. I get why the film maker just had a lot of shots of his face. Those pictures were worth a thousand words. Yes, Chris Lowell has a pretty face, but if you look past the face to see what was beneath, you get the pain his character is in. I was deeply touched by his portrayal because it captured the deeper heart level of what was going on internally for the character. I think he carried the film and hope to see him much much more.

napierslogs "Brightest Star" is an indie romantic drama about the journey of winning back the love of your life versus finding yourself. The Boy (Chris Lowell) loved Charlotte (Rose McIver) and lost Charlotte, and now he's lost himself and will do whatever it takes to get her back. That's right, our lead character doesn't have a name but every other main character does. If you haven't figured it out yet, he doesn't know himself very well.Some of the early sequences are out of chronological order, but it's not difficult to figure out where we're at. He was with Charlotte and now he's not. The film seems to revel in its independence with many close-up shots of the characters deep in thought with nondescript music playing in the background. It's a meandering tale of losing your first love and then finding yourself.The over-arching element of the story is of the universe. The boy is a liberal arts grad but is really interested in astronomy and he wants the universe to guide him in making the right decisions. As he explains in the opening narration, you could say it does, but I really hoped he eventually figured out how stupid he was being. The whole physics/universe angle is starting to become greatly over-used in recent indie romantic dramas and comedies, so it just doesn't feel all that fresh anymore.The writing was decent and the acting was good, but there's nothing to elevate the film to a higher level. The boy goes from meaningless job to meaningless job because he just doesn't know what to do and it takes him a while to figure out how to win back Charlotte. I never understood why he wanted Charlotte back in the first place. We never got to know her and only saw her treat him terribly. But the point isn't to get to know the characters. The point is that The Boy could be any boy, and every boy has a Charlotte. And every Charlotte is different except that they don't love the boy anymore.I needed "Brightest Star" to tell a more specific story. Preferably one where the boy wasn't so clueless and didn't need the universe to tell him what to do.