omarelshiekh I Don't understand why you do the effort as a filmmaker to look deep and important,when you actually have nothing to talk about,the movie is full of very long empty boring dialogues and that's it,acting is poor,directing is poorer.Personally I get offended when a movie pretends to look deep when actually it is so shallow and empty.

Hannah So, as you can read from the summaries online, Katherine is on the verge of a mental breakdown. The worst part is her "friend" Virginia, does not get her help. The way mental illness is viewed on this movie is ridiculous. You see Katherine slowly crumble over what? *spoilers* her boyfriend dumping her. Not to mention her father killed himself and instead of point blank clarifying that, everyone in the movie avoids that word like the plague and say depression killed him. Her friend lets her sit in despair without lending a hand whatsoever. And this brings me to my next point: sexism. These two women pine over men and are classic "frenemies". Instead of being strong women coming together and healing each other over past trauma, they mentally abuse one another and turn around to say "But we are best friends". In some scenarios, yes women treat each other like garbage, but not to this extent. Virginia claimed she gets rid of energy vampires in her life, but doesn't get rid of Katherine; instead, knows Katherine is spiraling out of control and allows it to go on for far too long. This is a plot that is completely overdone and sexist. You would honestly think these two are sisters or maybe even ex- lovers. Instead, they are manipulative friends who are vindictive and ruthless to one another. I see a few reviews saying their relationship slowly ended. If you pay attention to detail, last year when Katherine was there, they belittled each other. Classic "cat fight", right? Virginia also could not recount where Katherine was when she was dating a man from her past. It's funny how best friends KNOW where their friend is, and know the man the other is seeing. My conclusion is they have always had a repulsive friendship. Everyone wants to say "well it's persona swap, a sub-genre of movie that shows women slowly merging or taking on the personality traits of each other". To be fair, it isn't even that noticeable it happened. As a matter a fact, on the low-key, they acted like one another here and there. This isn't true friendship and the way the director showed mental illness (what appears to be schizoaffective disorder) is disgusting and cliché. Not sure how Metacritics gave this such high reviews. Is it because of two women leading? Or because it shows two women constantly verbally striking each other down and remaining "friends"? Toxic, repetitive, and downright creepy (not in a good way). If you can take a nap for an hour and a half, I suggest that over spending a moment watching this movie.

zoe chatzi While the film is absolutely adequate when it comes to cinematography, it lacks in all the other aspects. It feels like the film was made to show Moss' potential to the world. The script has a little bit something which could be perfect but the director seems to putter way to much with the image and the cinematography of his work than really see his heroines. With a story-line so Bergman-like this film was so promising, and for sure it is a work of art, but it just leaves you so unsatisfied that you feel you wasted one and a half hour of your life. The music,although it was superb, was so much that it felt like it overshadowed the whole work and I just couldn't get a moment of silence because it was covering it all.I give it a 5 out of 10 for cinematography, Elizabeth Moss, and the final monologue towards the end. The end left me so unsatisfied that it almost felt like suffocating.

Aurora Shilkie Enjoyable performance by Elisabeth Moss that mesmerizes viewer keeping the suspense high, but honestly it is misleading to call it a thriller... No thriller at all, if we omit the music that yes could be from a thriller. Congratulations to the director for making uninteresting events in one's life sound like lines from an ancient Greek tragedy. Honestly, it takes talent, as the film proves that HOW is more important than WHAT. To come again to Elisabeth Moss she is a high quality, A class actress that can play anything she likes. PS, the description "Two women who grew up together discover they have drifted apart when they retreat to a lake house together" should be revised.