3.5/10

Paul Haggis writes and directs this film with an array of Hollywood’s finest A-listers at his fingertips. When describing the plot of Third Person, i had trouble conjuring up the right words to accurately describe it. The story is spread into three different narratives with the first being a cheating relationship that stars Liam Neeson as an author, Olivia Wilde as his mistress, and Kim Basinger as Neeson’s wife. Neeson is writing his latest novel in Rome while seducing Olivia Wilde off of her feet. He uses Wilde as a forefront for his novel without even caring about her feelings. The second story involves Adrien Brody as a con artist business man type who is in Paris to make a big deal. He meets a mysterious woman (Played by Moran Atias) who needs twenty five thousand dollars to get her daughter back. Brody decides to help, but is left in question as to whether this is a scam or not. The third story (And only decent one in my opinion) stars James Franco and Mila Kunis as exes who are fighting for soul custody of their child. Kunis delivers what i feel is the only solid performance in the film playing opposite of anything she has ever done. She is a down on her luck loser who knows her life is spiraling out of control after the death of her daughter. Kunis was the one bright spot in a film with performances that are easily calling it in. The two biggest problems with this film is that it is too long (136 minutes), and the stories with it’s characters just aren’t interesting enough. You wonder how these stories have anything to do with each other minus some characters passing by one another much like Richard Linklater’s Slackers or Haggis’s 2004 film, Crash. It’s supposed to be a film about love, passion, and betrayal, but it’s all just not interesting enough to last over 2 hours. I found myself having problems even supporting any characters because they were all deceitful in some way. Maybe that was the point of the film, but it also leaves your audience not caring about their fate by the time the credits roll. The three stories aren’t interesting enough on their own and only drag the movie down when combined. There are some twists that happen during the film, but they come and go without being treated like a big discovery or reveal. How are we supposed to care if the movie obviously doesn’t? I have always dug Haggis’s style so i have absolutely no idea what went wrong with a movie director who panned Million Dollar Baby, Crash, and Casino Royale. This definitely feels like a Haggis film, but the endless supply of big time celebrities interracting and crossing stories feels used and abused ten years after his Oscar winning film, Crash. Third Person feels like a 20 minute idea with 115 minutes to fill in, and that time is never given that attention. The cinematography and artistic style of the camera angles were done very well with mostly light tones surrounding the locations of Rome, Paris, and New York. The big twist at the end with the three stories being related isn’t very well explained, and i hope you like symbolism because otherwise you will not understand the big reveal. It felt very easy to predict for me personally because the trailer was a lot more revealing than it probably should have been. I definitely do not recommend this film. It left me feeling tedious and overwhelmed by a story where i had to look for all the clues. I like a challenge in a film, but sometimes presenting the twists with an easy highlighter is much needed. Third Person is an absolute mess of the film. Even a blockbuster cast cannot save it from a disjointed plot and laughable dialogue. It’s a film that tries to be smarter than it really is, and that’s what will keep the audience from ever relating to Third Person. It’s a complicated mess that is best if you stay away from it.