Paths (2017)

Hmmm. This might well have worked better on paper, or perhaps even on stage where the confines of the sets might have given it greater intimacy. As a movie, though, it's all rather pedestrian. It's about two men (though it could easily be about any adult permutation) - "Andreas" (Mike Hoffman) and "Martin" (Mathis Reinhardt) who have a young son "Max" and a life together which we now enjoy/share/endure over a rather lengthy hundred minutes. It's not that it's dull - indeed there is a paucity of dialogue that works quite well at times, it's just that it's maybe a bit too much like real life. Not a great deal happens - and when it does, it's not necessarily that interesting to those watching or can appear a little dramatically contrived. The film is set over quite a long timeframe too, and there are gaps. Sometimes that is good but towards the end, though, that becomes rather puzzling - almost as if the writers just wanted to get it all over with. It's quite nicely filmed, but I felt a little like a fly on the wall watching something that wasn't that compelling or always any of my business.