The Reconstruction of William Zero (2015)

Good start, but then it gets ruined

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

When Dan Bush (Co-Writer, Director, Co-Screen Editor) and Conal Byrne (Co-Writer, Main Character Actor) sat down to put this project together, I'm sure they were enthusiastic and knew they had an interesting story to tell. They do.However, either because of run-time editing or they were negligent in the telling of the story, the viewer is given too much information too soon in some ways (first plot twist revealed at about 19 minutes in; second at about 31 minutes) and not enough information too late, if at all, in other ways.Meanwhile, one has to fight against the sleep inducing, hauntingly slow, lullaby-like synthesized keyboard and "rain-on-a-pond" two-fingered piano poking that carries throughout the entire film.The cinematography adds to the vertigo of sleep in that, at no point does it seem, the camera operator/director can make up his/their mind if something (other than Conal Byrne) should be or remain in focus. There are a few times when we are seeing things through another's failing eyesight. Fine. But that wouldn't justify all the other times.There is a cast of characters in this film but we don't get to know them or care about them except for Amy Seimetz's character, "Jules". Ms.Seimetz did an admirably fine job to establish her character and insert "Jules" into the viewers consciousness despite so little screen time.Conal Byrne performed very well with the different but somewhat similar personalities he had to keep distinct for the viewer. I'm not surprised, however, since he co-wrote the story and didn't have to create the character after landing the role since he wrote the role for himself. Nevertheless, he showed skill and talent in his portrayals.This film is categorized as "sci-fi"/"drama" in the same respect 'Flowers For Algernon' is. But this is no "Flowers For Algernon"... would have been nice if it were as 'William Zero' is only part way to achieving was was achieved in 'Algernon'."The Reconstruction of William Zero" shines as a story but this sleep-inducing version of it begs an awakening in a remake.

Briefly, the story evolves around the concept of clones, and a situation is conjured up as a sort of platform to deliver a plot theme centered on this arena of potential ethical questions.It could have been a fantastically compelling film, but just didn't quite get there.No spoilers here, so it's a bit difficult to focus on some of the key elements which are the demise of this effort.What stood out the most, perhaps, was the absurdly overdone emotional moments of the key clone character(s), which came off as just being syrupy, like emotional molasses oozing out of the screen.I know, it was supposed to represent the emotional neediness and psychological challenges of the main character(s), but it just came off painfully slow and pedantic.Just a wee bit too much on the self absorbed delusionary role playing . . . and a bit light on the actual functionality of the overall plot premise.Perhaps this might be remade somewhere in the future, with a different treatment.The concept is certainly interesting . . . but this version, well . . .

It took me three attempts to watch this movie. Five minutes into the first attempt I went to sleep. Of course that's not fair. No movie is that bad. OK, very few movies are that bad. On the second attempt I got to about 20 minutes in before falling asleep. On the third attempt, after being well rested, I completed the movie.By now you're probably wondering why was I so committed to watching this movie. I don't know. So, the one word I have for this movie is: somniferous. That is to say sleep inducing."The Reconstruction of William Zero" was a movie about cloning, and not a good one. Dr. William Blakely is the subject of the cloning and two wrongs don't make a right. In other words, if you take one lifeless character and clone him what do you have? Yes, that's two lifeless characters.The story was thrown together. There was a little twist in there but that did nothing to save it. Somehow we were supposed to care about he and his wife whom we saw for all of five minutes. It was just one slow, drawn out drama detailing number 5,362 of why cloning is bad.

Saw this at the IMAGINE film festival 2015 in Amsterdam. There were a lot of things I did not understand during the screening, and became clear only when my company explained that we actually saw two William's, with very opposite intentions and attitudes (in hindsight: the synopsis had some clues in that direction, but I overlooked it at the time). Nevertheless, in spite of my lack of understanding of some moves of protagonist(s), I was not lost in the proceedings, and it was still entertaining throughout the running time.SciFi: Making a clone of yourself is the only SF-element in the story. In the lab where he works, most experiments in that direction (on dogs) turn out to be failures, as all specimen developed some form of brain tumor or blindness. Our human clone seems not to be bothered much by the foresight of these defects, which may happen to him as well in the near future. That strikes me as odd. It should have received more attention in the screenplay, if only to make this movie more interesting while painting a possible future path in medical science.Drama: The separation from his wife, after having lost their 4-year old son by careless driving, is believable. Adding that to his fixation on his work, which caused the accident in the first place as shown in the opening scene. The interaction between the respective versions of William is not that clear (see above) and needs more attention to get us involved in the dramatic possibilities offered by the plot. It seems that some plot potential is left unused.Thriller: There are several plot lines offering thriller elements: the stolen clone material and the investigation around the theft, the constant killing by one of the William's to eliminate each and every exposure risk, and so on. It all seem independent building blocks at first sight. The overarching theme can only be put together afterwards, a pity that it was not made more apparent in an earlier stage.All in all, above paragraphs touch a lot of missed opportunities. These are clearly offered by the plot yet not covered by the script, in spite of being anticipated when reading the synopsis beforehand. Though failing on expectations, the story was not boring overall, and the respective plot lines still made it an interesting watch. A pity that the end result was not more than that.