— The opening moment. It feel like I got punched by the Inception-y tones before I got a chance to take in the start of the film. Having the sound happen exactly as the bottle entered the frame, while timed excellently, felt like it was trying too hard to reinforce the foreshadowing purpose of this scene. I wasn’t allowed to form any opinion before being ‘told’ what to feel. Instead of taking in what happened next, I was trying to shake this sound so I could be present in what was happening.

— The overacting in the opening scene. I didn’t believe it at all. I knew what was trying to be conveyed, but it reads like a green actor who is very focused on showing that this character is UPSET and WORRIED and ANXIOUS and DISORIENTED without actually living the experience of what has caused these states. This makes the actor look insecure and gives me the impression that he either doesn’t trust himself to convey the circumstances truthfully and is ‘pushing’ to show the emotions. Emotions are not the endpoint, they are a byproduct of living truthfully within an experience. Focusing on showing the emotions leads to superficial moments.

— Any interaction/dialogue with the weird neighbor. 
 sound like fake conversations. “Don’t be foolish”, “Coincidence you think?” – Nobody talks like this in real life.

— The moments where he wakes up aren’t believable. Acting wise, waking up is weirdly difficult to do truthfully. There is a transition between the dream world and becoming aware of the world, of reality, that needs to happen. The first wakeup in particular, nobody wakes up from a sleep like that. It is very obvious the actor anticipated the alarm and is awake.  During the second wakeup, I believed it through when his head is lifted, but I don’t believe the reach to/flipping of the book (too awake).

— The scenes with the weird neighbor. There is potential there to create a heightened reality where something is just…off, but these interactions are not well written and just comes across as ‘trying to hard’ and awkward. In the first interaction, why is there a default animosity with the weird neighbor when there hasn’t been any indication that this neighbor could be the culprit? He looks like he hates the neighbor. If he hates the neighbor, why is he taking the time to talk to him in the first place beyond pleasantries? If you don’t want to talk to someone, why seek out and pursue a conversation with them?

— The weird neighbor stalking scene. When the guy shows up behind him, why is he so calm? The way he is framed, it seems like he’s supposed to be viewed as so smart for side stepping and hiding behind a bush but it just doesn’t work. His back would be against the fence, not towards the neighbor (Godfather rule) and there is no way the neighbor would not think his movement wasn’t suspicious.

— The entire scene where he ends up writing ‘IT’S HIM’. The acting is entirely superficial here. It is so focused on showing that he’s doing something and not actually doing the thing. Also, how can you fall asleep in this situation? I actually laughed out loud when I saw ‘IT’S HIM’. The entire scene, the camera movement, the capitalized letters, everything is the opposite of subtlety. This is the top of the list on telling the audience what to believe instead of trusting that they believe it.
— Notes from ending: “Wait, what? That’s the ending. I feel like we’ve basically been told over and over again what the ending is and I understand what is trying to be said but we haven’t actually seen the evidence that he’s the murderer. We don’t see anything, we’re just told through the character’s realization…but I don’t believe the actor so I don’t believe the character so I don’t trust this realization.”