Nostalgia

Nostalgia, a 2018 film by Mark Pellington, is a strong star studded casted movie, but falls short in many respects on everything else.  The characters and setting of the movie shifts throughout, but the little vignettes centralizes around the general theme of Nostalgia.  The script, was written and based on a grouping of short stories, would have been better left off screen, or written more specifically for the the theater rather than the movie screen.

Nostalgia is a connection of people reminiscing on different pieces of their life and the keepsakes.  What makes things noteworthy to save, what are things of value to an individual, trinkets that you'd want to pass on.  Each character has a bit of time to get nostalgic about whatever bit it is that is their central focus in the film.  You start with an old man and an agent whom is going through his house to then report back to the old man's grand daughter to fill in if there's anything noteworthy in his small house suffering through hoards of piles.  The agent then goes to an old lady's house who burned down, and saved the Ted Williams ball that's been in her family for generations.  She doesn't seem to know much about it, other than the fact it's been in her family for generations.  She then in turn goes out to Vegas, to a memorabilia dealer to see if it's worth anything.  The dealer, then goes to visit his sister to help her pack up their parent's house that have downsized and moved to Florida.

For a roughly two hour film, there's just too much jam packed into the movie, plot and character development wise.  And while you're segwaying into a different component of the story the voice overs are filled with cliched metaphors and platitudes on why these trinkets or random objects have a deep seeded connection into existence. 

This is the type of book, collection of short stories, or a play that I would have probably enjoyed because I felt that the written word probably could have done a better job at connecting the stories.  And while I usually like most movies that John Hamm is in, I just felt this movie was an overall flop and trying to be more than it actually could pull off.  While the premise of the story was interesting, and the ideas of what mattered, I think this movie would have been better executed by a well thought out book or stage production, where they could focus more on the shift of characters and their development.  There were so many missed opportunities in the film with a dire need for better dialogue, character shifts and development.