This Is Not a War Story

Directed by Talia Lugacy, This Is Not a War Story follows several veterans, including Sam Adegoke’s Will and Lugacy’s Isabelle, as they attempt to move on with their lives by collaborating on war-themed art. It’s an intriguing setup that is, for the most part, employed to terminally underwhelming effect by Lugacy, as the filmmaker, working from her own script, delivers an often astonishingly uninvolving endeavor that fares especially poorly in its abstract, context-free opening stretch – with the movie, in its meandering first half, focused on the less-than-enthralling comings and goings of its uniformly one-dimensional protagonists. (Lugacy’s decision to emphasize mood and atmosphere over character development proves disastrous, ultimately, as it generally remains impossible to work up any real interest in or sympathy for the heroes’ exploits.) The movie’s failure is especially disappointing given that Lugacy admittedly elicits strong work from her various performers, and it’s worth noting, too, that This Is Not a War Story does possess a very small (and all-too-brief) selection of decidedly compelling sequences – with this particularly true of an emotionally-charged sequence wherein Will and Isabelle have a soul-baring conversation by a campfire. (This scene is preceded by an interminable stretch set within a remote cabin, unfortunately.) The end result is an earnest, well-intentioned effort that simply isn’t able to make the searing impact one might’ve anticipated based on the premise, which is a shame, certainly, due to the potential afforded by the gritty, sentiment-free bent of Lugacy’s approach to the exceedingly familiar material.

*1/2 out of ****