Charly

I have had a long-standing bet with a friend that I would not cry when I saw Charly. It is a low-budget movie about an unlikely romance and the couple’s struggle when the girl is diagnosed with a terrible cancer. It was a very sad movie, especially when I imagined losing my own wife, but it was simply too poorly made to make me cry. The filmmakers did a decent job considering the resources open to them—the film was shot in 20 days on a very tight budget—but the fact still remains that the acting is wooden and the film is plagued with lighting and camera problems. On top of that, the first half of the movie is extremely annoying to me because Charly’s character is, well, annoying. However, despite its shortcomings, Charly did manage to evoke some powerful emotions on occasion, so it certainly wasn’t a complete failure.