Here's what I wrote mostly before the movie was even finished:

When it comes to his television shows, Noah Hawley is a master of using imagery to further his narrative goals. He's also rightly criticized for sometimes valuing the tricks he can pull with a camera or a bit of soundtrack over actually developing the plot. The second season of Legion for many is the most evocative of both the best and worst Hawley has to offer - or at least it was before Lucy in the Sky. This is a movie that's never quite sure of the story its telling or how its most interested in telling it. At times, usually at its best, Lucy tells a psychological thriller tale about a woman's struggle to cope with the smallness of her life from the perspective of the stars. At others, it's a dull romantic comedy and at yet others a sort of mockery of people who define themselves by a single interest.

What's pretty strange about all this is that the story of Lisa Nowak is compelling enough on its own that all the things they change about it just feels like an aggressive attempt to have some authorship over this story. Unfortunately most of the added details - especially the weird subplot with Lucy's niece, Blue Iris - make for a movie that never quite knows what it wants to be. The ending suggests that it wants to make some big point about life and the pursuit of living it, but the first half of this movie is so bland that all the ambitious turns it takes in the second just don't pay off.

Lucy in the Sky has some very good performances in it, some clever shots and what not, but for as tawdry as this tale could have been it just needed to either focus down or fully expand as a limited series. As it stands, it's just pointless.


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"This is the streets, and I am the trap." � Jay Bilas
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