AIFF - Oil on Water

I don't know anything about the people who made this film, Oil and Water. Visually, it had beautiful people and beautiful settings. The beginning conversations - the students talking about the meaning of art - sounded totally scripted and unnatural. Additionally there is nothing profound about listening to amateur philosophizing. Anna's narrating sounded like a high schooler's pretentious philosophical nothings. Either I got used to it or the acting got closer to normal sounding. And eventually we realize this is someone's project to tell the world about the problems of schizophrenia. And then you fell a little guilty about having all those nasty thoughts about the movie. We spent a lot of time trying to figure out where it was taking place. We had it down to either Australia or South Africa - the speech patterns weren't as pronounced as people I know from either of those places. It turned out to be South Africa. If this was a professionally made movie, I'm unimpressed. I would say the woman who played the old family friend of Max stood out as a competent actress. If this was someone with a story who made her own movie, it's more understandable. But Autism the Musical was a much better way to tell the story of a mental health problem. [And Body/Anti-Body was an even better way - it told us about obsessive-compulsive disorder, not by telling us, but by making it part of the main character's behavior in a totally absorbing movie.]