Gosh… when a movie misses, it can miss hard. I absolutely did not connect with anything in this movie except for maybe one minute of screen-time. Wish I’d seen the movie everyone else is talking about… and maybe you should listen to them since there’s a lot of agreement.

Sanctuary is about a young man who is heir to his father’s Hotel empire. He’s been seeing a dominatrix for awhile but has decided to move on. She doesn’t take it well and soon they are in a battle of wits, manipulation, and a little blackmail.

This is the kind of flick I’d normally call an actor’s film. A stage play movie. And I guess it is except I greatly loathed the characters and their unconvincing dialog. I kept thinking that nobody talks (or reacts) like this. And, sure, I’ve never been a wealthy hotelier or a dominatrix, but I should still be able to relate on some level.

I was deeply annoyed… and bored… through every scene. I know these aren’t meant to be likable characters but I just did not for one second buy any of their choices, motivations, or reasoning. It’s hard to sit through a 90 minute chatfest while deeply loathing the chat. And it’s not the idea of the wimpy whiny man being trapped by this cold-hearted snaaaake… because that’s the plot and it should have worked.

The only thing I inexplicably liked was the last minute of the film… about the only time their character dynamic really made sense to me. It left me with a weird feeling of hating 99% of the movie but actually liking the moment before it cut to credits. And the credits weren’t so bad either.

It’s a dialog-driven movie where I didn’t buy the dialog. Or the characters. So, yeah, this simply couldn’t have worked for me.

Score: 60