![]() Daphne gets flashbacks to her relationship falling apart, and these come in fragmentary images, literal "flashes," here and then gone. There are some nice stylistic flourishes. And so is Stan, exuding charm and troubled sex appeal, as well as a strain of true sadness and loneliness. It's nice to see Jamie Dornan playing a regular guy instead of a serial killer (" The Fall") or a lonely bazillionaire with a penchant for BDSM (" Fifty Shades of Grey"). That being said, the performances are grounded in in-the-moment reality, and nothing is pushed. Frank is a melancholy bachelor who does drugs (she is horrified), and Jack talks about Nikos Kazantzakis and is all super smart and everything. The two men are presented in a binary way: Frank makes her come, Jack makes her think. Oh, Daphne, you need to learn the freedom of a "friend with benefits" arrangement. She has feelings for both! Jack gets a fellowship in Rome, and she can barely hide her dismay at him leaving her. Daphne has hot steamy sex with Frank, and goes on proper dates with Jack, and she's lying to both about her dealings with the other. ("Endings, Beginnings" is a potent reminder of why I disabled sound alerts on my phone.). He tells her he is suffering too, and says stuff like, "You're killing me," or "You're driving me crazy." Five minutes later she meets Jack ( Jamie Dornan), a friendly Irish writer who is instantly interested in her. Frank ( Sebastian Stan) approaches her with the pickup line: "Who are you hiding from in that dress?" She talks about her suffering. ‘Endings, Beginnings’ releases on digital on April 17th, followed by the on-demand release on May 1st.Daphne is just a week into staying at her sister's when she meets two gorgeous hunks at a party. Though the movie stalls frequently before it finds its balance, Woodley makes us care. The star of the Divergent series and HBO’s Big Little Lies - who showed her acting mettle in films as diverse as The Descendants, The Spectacular Now, and The Fault in Our Stars - proves the perfect partner for Doremus in trying to trace one woman’s journey to self realization. It’s the performances that carry the day with Woodley raising the bar in every scene. Daphne’s pregnancy and lack of certainty about who’s the father add to that sudsy feeling. The fact that Daphne will have conflicted sex separately with Frank and Jack - who turn out to be best buds - has the contrived ring of soap opera. In Endings, Beginnings, the dialogue runs to seemingly tossed-off clichés with motivations as hazy as Marianne Bakke’s cinematography. Think John Cassavetes meets Mike Leigh without the verbal insight those two pioneers shaped out of deep research and rehearsal. It’s the same here as Doremus and novelist Jardine Libaire provide a springboard for Woodley, Dornan, and Stan. Where is all this going? If you’ve been a student of Doremus since Like Crazy, with its splendid pairing of Felicity Jones and the late Anton Yelchin, you know that this director starts out with an outline of plot and then lets the actors improvise. Daphne finds Frank irresistible, and he is as acted by Stan, the Winter Soldier making the most of his chance to play a badass charm boy. It’s Frank (Sebastian Stan) who’s the player, gently mocking Daphne’s confession about her suffering by texting her a playlist of music for suffering. ![]() Jack is a teacher and an author, and he also likes art. ![]() Get your head out of the S&M gutter just because Dornan played kink maestro Christian Grey in the 50 Shades of Grey trilogy. Jack ( Jamie Dornan) doesn’t come on strong. The mood picks up at her sister’s New Year’s Eve party when two men hit on Daphne. She does indifferently apply for a job as a museum curator. Her married half-sister Billie (Lindsay Sloane) offers her pool house as shelter, which only intensifies Daphne’s sense of failure. Her friend Ingrid (a fab Kyra Sedgwick) urges Daphne to take a six-month time-out from men and drinking - not a healthy combo. Daphne’s new beginnings don’t exactly radiate promise.
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