Name: Session
Genre: Drama
Released: 2011-05-08
Duration: 1 h 29 min
Rating: 2.7
Cast: Bar Refaeli, Liron Levo, Gillian Buick

Not a psychological thriller, but not a bad movie, either.

I was hoping for a psychological thriller, though I guess that wasn't explicitly promised. It did seem like the movie was angling toward that, a few times, but it never really crossed over to tense or edgy. I think that might be why the previous reviewer disliked this movie so much: it was much more of a drama than anything else. I certainly didn't find it as boring, long, or tedious as he did (I love the line about the gun to his head), but it did seem a bit, well, uneventful for what was billed as a thriller. It wasn't even one of those "slow burn" dramas, either, which can be really great; rather, the story inexorably moved forward, just as the plot summary promised, with the psychiatrist becoming more and more obsessed with his patient. Maybe I should be happier that I got what I was promised. It just seemed kind of unfulfilling, if you get what I mean. I was expecting danger, intrigue, menace, criminal intent; and, yet, what I got was an unprofessional psychiatrist. That's fine in a drama (and, to be fair, this is called a "drama-thriller"), but when people call something a thriller, you're expecting a hell of a lot more suspense than this movie delivers.

I don't fault the actors at all. On the contrary, I thought they all did a great job. The directing was what really got to me. There was no subtlety at all. There were shots that screamed, "HEY, HERE IS A CLUE. ARE YOU PAYING ATTENTION? HERE, I WILL LET THE CAMERA LINGER FOR A LITTLE WHILE LONGER, IN CASE YOU WERE NOT." Ugh. Yes, Mr. Director Man, I was paying attention. In the future, I would suggest letting the story tell itself, rather than beating us over the head with it. And you might want to skip using cameramen with epilepsy next time, because I'm pretty sure he had a seizure or two, which is really annoying, because it always happened right when the scenes started getting a bit interesting. Oh well.

Would I recommend this movie? Well, probably not to thriller fans, but if you're willing to forgo much of the promised tension and suspense, it's actually not that bad of a movie. I've seen much worse.

The drama genre is a broad category that features stories portraying human experiences, emotions, conflicts, and relationships in a realistic and emotionally impactful way. Dramas delve into the complexities of human life, often exploring themes of love, loss, morality, societal issues, personal growth, with the aim to evoke an emotional response from the audience by presenting relatable and thought-provoking stories.

Mahershala Ali and Alex R. Hibbert in Moonlight (2016)

A psychological suspense drama-thriller where a psychologist becomes obsessed with one of his patients. The lines between dreams and reality blend.

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