Magic Hour is a title that slipped by me during my SXSW experience, even having the opportunity to chat with writer/director Katie Aselton about the film only to have a scheduling conflict that caused me to miss the screening. Now several months later, the film had made a resurgence at a local indie film festival and I gleamed at the opportunity to see it finally on the big screen. Maybe my expectations were too high, but the film sadly flatlined quickly with interest waning and the logic becoming more difficult to come by. The film is surreal, abstract, yet grounded… the film is a story about trauma and grief but also a film about ghosts or mental illness caused from said loss? 

 

One thing to take away from the experience is that all involved from an acting standpoint, did a respectable to fantastic job with the material they were given. The two leads of Katie Aselton and Daveed Diggs being the obvious standouts, even if their actions and dialogue begins to grind on any natural viewing party (but that has nothing to do with their performances). It does have to do with the script and more importantly the way that Aselton (and editors Kyle Boston & Stephanie Kaznocha) stitched this film together in its final execution. 

 

At only 89 minutes, Magic Hour struggles to sustain any motivation to continue following this couple’s navigation through their grief. The film is bogged down by numerous slow motion sequences and creative decisions behind the camera that just get out of control, especially in the context of a drama. It’s easy to feel Magic Hour’s runtime as not a lot occurs within it, every action and line is stretched to fill time - making for a pretentious (primarily dull) experience that clearly should’ve been a short film rather than ever extending to feature length.