Earthquake Bird

MOVIE #1,077 • 🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿 • 07.25.23 It’s BIRD day here on TWO FOR TUESDAY. (The other 2019 “Bird” themed film deserves a standalone post, as you’ll see.) I think the movie poster perfectly encapsulates the quality of this movie: perhaps not bad but definitely not good. I was surprised that this stock Netflix-core thriller has 48% on RT. Feels like at least a 63%-er to me. Surely it’s not worse than half of the other films of this ilk (again: see the movie poster, you know what I’m talking about).

Based on a 2001 novel set in the late 80s, Earthquake Bird struggles mostly with its pacing. You know the twist (or, twists in this case) are coming and in the translation from paper to screen, this becomes the only aspect one thinks about. The first reveal (which turns out to be a fake-out) felt abrupt and the second felt wholly unearned. And a tacked-on Good Will Hunting ass “It’s not your fault” denouement meant to alleviate some of our protagonist’s (Alicia Vikander) mountain of guilt really rubbed me the wrong way.

Still, the backdrop of Japan is nice and the movie looks pretty good and is well-acted overall. It’s part of a canon of inoffensive psychological thrillers that they’ve been making forever. With streaming, however, they feel more like a dime a dozen than ever before.

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⫷ MOVIE #1,076 - (YOU ARE HERE) - MOVIE #1,078 ⫸

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Earthquake Bird is a 2019 psychological thriller film written and directed by Wash Westmoreland based on the 2001 novel of the same name by Susanna Jones. It stars Alicia Vikander, Riley Keough, Naoki Kobayashi and Jack Huston. It had its world premiere at the BFI London Film Festival. It was released on October 10, 2019.