“…the way the movie is structured is its downfall in my opinion.”

Shoplifters is a movie that had been getting a lot of buzz recently, so naturally I made it my mission to go down to my local art house cinema, brave the non-heated auditorium and the myriad of old people coughing and talking, and watch it. 

I like to go into movies knowing as little about them as possible because as much as I agree that no art can exist in a vacuum, I like to give every movie I see the best chance I can. I don’t know that strategy really helped Shoplifters however because the story felt so segmented that I doubt any amount t of trailers could have spoiled it for me.

Shoplifters is interesting to me because it is about a very modern family, a family where multiple generations are living under the same roof, and therefore it is able to almost deliver overlapping coming-of-age stories to the audience. Each of the characters presented are so fleshed-out, so unique in their story that Shoplifters almost feels like four or five different movies put together.

While this can be seen as a bonus, each scene in Shoplifters being part of a different story does make it difficult to get bored, the way the movie is structured is its downfall in my opinion.  All of the parts were phenomenal, but the total sum of the parts was less than stellar.

I feel like if the story was tightened to maybe just three of the characters instead of all six individually the experience would have been more enjoyable. I don’t know, I feel like I’m going to be spinning my wheels at this point.

I give Shoplifters a B