The Last Thing He Wanted

— Anne Hathaway and Ben Affleck, along with Rosie Perez and Willem Dafoe? Based on Joan Didion’s novel? What could go wrong? Well, although Hathaway’s a good actor, it’s hard to make her look bad and that’s a problem for a reporter in Nicaragua who’s caught up in gunrunners, conspiracy and mayhem. It’s a confusing plot to follow, and just a little too fragmented for motivations to ever be clear. It’s hard to see the truth in most scenes, but maybe that’s half the intrigue. There’s an effort to add some clarity at the end for which I was grateful but, overall, this struck me as a complicated, multi-layered novel that just wasn’t well-suited to becoming a film at the hands of any but the most extraordinary scriptwriters. [Netflix streaming.]

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[2020. 115 min. Directed by Dee Rees. Starring Anne Hathaway, Ben Afflect, Rosie Perez, and Willem Dafoe.]
https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-last-thing-he-wanted-movie-review-2020