God’s Crooked Lines Review: An Intricate Script at The Right Point, Story Full of Twists and Turns | Los renglones torcidos de Dios
Cast: Bárbara Lennie and Eduard Fernández
Director: Oriol Paulo
Streaming Platform: Netflix
Filmyhype.com Ratings: 3.5/5 (three and a half stars) [yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]
As we will see in this review of God’s Crooked Lines (Los renglones torcidos de Dios), the film directed by the Spanish Oriol Paulo and based on the novel by Torcuato Luca de Tena shares with Scorsese’s cult film, in addition to the setting also being centered on a healthy protagonist who, surrounded by mentally ill people, must discover hidden truth. The premises are similar: instead of a federal agent who arrives in a mental hospital to investigate a case, we have a private detective who is interned, pretending to be insane, to find the culprits of a murder. However, things, as in Shutter Island, will turn out to be much more complicated than they initially seem.
If there is a starting point that can make a thriller fascinating, it is that of being set in a place where reality and lies, sanity and madness are constantly mixed: a mental asylum. As Martin Scorsese knows well, given the success of his Shutter Island, this kind of context is perfect for giving life to intricate stories, full of twists and turns and which leave the viewer constantly wondering whom to trust and if what the characters are telling whether or not it is a result of their mental disturbances.
God’s Crooked Lines Review: The Story
Alice is a private detective who voluntarily admits herself to a mental hospital. Her purpose is to shed light on a murder that took place in the facility. However, things turn out to be much more complicated than she could have ever imagined. Alice (Bárbara Lennie) is an extremely wealthy woman with a good life behind her, a charming husband and a career as a private detective. It will be her will that she will be locked up in a prestigious psychiatric hospital, intending to find out if, a few months earlier, a young patient committed suicide or behind her suspicious death there is something more. Dr. Raimundo García del Olmo, a father of the deceased and friend of the director of the facility, hired her.
The woman, who is extremely capable and intelligent, will immediately notice, as soon as she enters the asylum, that the case will not be so simple to solve: do hospitalized patients know anything? What about the medical staff? Among a thousand subterfuges, Alice will be able to scrape together some evidence, but things will become increasingly intricate and complex, to the point of making her question her sanity. How is it possible that the director of the facility, Samuel Alvar (Eduard Fernández), doesn’t remember the letters they exchanged to stage his hospitalization? And why does her husband seem to have suddenly disappeared?
God’s Crooked Lines Review and Analysis
God’s Crooked Lines, although he perhaps lacks the directorial refinement of Scorsese’s film that we mentioned earlier, immediately capture his viewer, who is drawn into a story that proceeds by twists and turns, constantly putting question the role of the protagonist. To make everything even more interesting, the initial flashbacks on the night of the alleged murder will later prove to be a key to understanding the more captivating mystery than we had initially imagined. The excessive playing time (the film lasts a good 155 minutes) could put some viewers to the test, but the plot becomes progressively more engaging, to make certain extensions less tedious, to the point of absolutely not affecting the enjoyment of the story.
To make such an intricate plot convincing (even in its craziest moments) a believable protagonist is needed, who carries the story forward and convinces the viewer of its duplicity. Will he be sane or will he be a fool like everyone else? Bárbara Lennie maneuvers well in the role, insinuating doubt in those who look at her true motivations. The story is told entirely from her point of view, and for this reason, she finds herself changing her opinion on the reality of the facts whenever a twist turns the tables.
If you’ve seen Shutter Island, it’s pretty much the same plot as an investigation into an insane asylum. or detention facility for psychiatric patients but what this story does is not copy the idea at all. Let’s just say that the plot is similar. But the story progresses further, more complicated, but easier to see, and less confusing, in movies from Spain, we often see good script writing already like this many people may be fascinated by The Invisible Guest by the same director. The author doesn’t like the ending, which is a bit too much but this story is a work that’s not overpowering. And it’s more perfect in many ways.
The story is not just the investigation of the heroine, or do you think she’s crazy? But the story still follows the drama of the relationship of the crazy characters in this place. interacting with the heroine and maybe the murderer the heroine is looking for Including the doctor who treated her until she began to sympathize All these supporting characters are important, aligned into a secondary storyline that is secretly a little warm. It is a relationship that helps deliver the ending to invite you to see the fate of the heroine’s life even more.
God’s Crooked Lines Review: The Last Words
God’s Crooked Lines captured the viewer in a story full of twists and turns. A crime thriller that involves and leaves no one indifferent, also due to the good performance of its protagonist Bárbara Lennie. Perhaps disappointing is the ending, which stops for a moment before a further turning point, leaving us to re-evaluate what happened in a slightly less interesting light than we expected. Even this, however, is a twist in its way, which will make it difficult for Oriol Paulo’s film to get out of your head.
