Neither as good nor as bad as a lot of reviewers are saying. Flat acting, clumsy sound and cinematography--low levels of energy and interest. I never forgot I was watching a (mostly boring) movie. If you are a serious PKD fan you will want to watch it. If not, the first five minutes will tell you all you need to know--it does not get any better.
It's too talky. Dialogue and narrative seem to be recited pretty much straight from the novel, with little of visual interest on the screen most of the time.
Actors are not good at showing emotion. For instance, a main character is having an intense mystical vision, but in the reaction shots he could just as well be an American watching a cricket match.
Radio Free Albemuth
2010
Action / Drama / Sci-Fi
Radio Free Albemuth
2010
Action / Drama / Sci-Fi
Plot summary
Berkeley record store clerk Nick Brady (Jonathan Scarfe) begins to experience strange visions from an entity he calls VALIS that cause him to uproot his family and move to Los Angeles where he becomes a successful music company executive. With the help of best friend, science fiction writer Philip K. Dick himself (Shea Whigam) and a mysterious woman named Silvia (Alanis Morissette),Nick finds himself drawn into a dangerous political-mystical conspiracy of cosmic proportions. The story is set in an alternate reality America circa 1985 under the authoritarian control of President Fremont, a Nixon-like clone (Scott Wilson).
Uploaded by: FREEMAN
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Top cast
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Mediocre movie -- mostly only for hardcore PKD fans.
High Strangeness
This small independent/low budget film is built on extremely effective uses of science fiction coupled with religion coupled with political resistance to totalitarian power and a weird species of multidimensional autobiography that coalesces to provide a very, very satisfying conclusion and a sharp emotional experience. Shea Whigham carries the film, he's great. Hanna Hall is a most excellent villain. The story reminded me of The Man in the High Castle, another PK Dick novel featuring alternative parallel universes. The story is inspired by real paranormal events that PK Dick and his wife Tessa experienced in Los Angeles in the 1980s. highly recommend this for lovers of cerebral film.
The first film to really capture the work of Philip K. Dick
While previous adaptations of the work of the late, great Philip K. Dick have often been enjoyable, none has really taken a great deal from the original source stories beyond the most perfunctory aspects of the plot.
Radio Free Albemuth, while not sticking slavishly to every letter of the original text, is the first adaptation to really capture the spirit and convey the substance of Dick's work. Although this film does not have the high tech sheen of the more celebrated films to be taken from Dick's writing, it is every bit as gripping and exciting as the best of them, but also retains the intelligence, and political thought that previously has tended to go missing in translating Dick from page to screen.
John Alan Simon has written an exemplary screenplay and matched it with strong direction. The acting performances are also fine throughout.
I saw this at the Sci-Fi London film festival and got the distinct impression that I was not alone in my enthusiasm for this movie.