Limerculer A waste of 90 minutes of my life

Odelecol Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

CrawlerChunky In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Erica Derrick By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

ice ruby red This movie is like a carcass with no bones... a lovely building with no foundation... music notes without a staff. The scenery is beautiful, the cast is superb, but so much is left to the audience to figure out on their own, that you are often left scratching your head. You are never given a reason to care about the mother or son... there is little depth to their characters, it's very "surface", like the ice that appears ubiquitously in the movie, and in some cases, in the characters' behavior.. Suddenly the mother seems to be saying goodbye to her son, and you're like "WTF?" Aloft is like a book that someone has randomly torn pages out of. And the anticipated ending/reunion? I blinked and the credits rolled!This would have been a terrific movie if it had been longer, more fleshed out, and had an ending worthy of putting all the time, money and effort into making a movie to begin with.

Gordon-11 This film tells the story of a journalist, who sets up a meeting between a young man and his mother who tragically abandoned him twenty years ago in a cold, icy land.I don't quit know what "Aloft" is about, because of a poor story and a poorly presented story. The non-linear storyline does not help to clear things up, and in fact it confuses and meddles up everything. Central plot ideas are poorly conveyed, for example the first scene seems completely unrelated and even irrelevant to the rest of the film. Motives and actions of characters are poorly explained that most of the time I don't know what they are doing. As a result I don't even know what exactly drove the mother to abandon her son. I understand there was a tragedy, but what exactly happened that linked the tragedy to the abandonment, which was poorly presented that it happened already before I realised that the scene was about abandonment.I watched it for Jennifer Connelly, but unfortunately "Aloft" is not a high point for Jennifer Connelly's portfolio of work.

Justin-354-218379 An hour and a half into the movie and I am still not entirely sure what is happening. Seriously what the heck am I watching? Terrible movie. Jumps back and forth between the past and future at unrelated points in the story. Dialog is boring. Hard to follow what is going on. Character development is non-existent. The mother discovers she is a mystic healer. The son keeps and trains and keeps predator birds (falcons specifically). The execution of the premise is even more weird and poorly executed than it sounds. This is a really poorly developed story that never should have been made into a movie. Through its entirety the viewer is subjected to bad writing (no range in vocabulary) with a plot that never really happens. The attempt is to masquerade as some deep art piece. It fails. Film was just a crap indie film or a B-Role movie intended to go straight to RedBox. And even it that low bar to shoot for, if the directors hadn't scored Jennifer Connelly in the lead role it wouldn't have even attracted viewership in that subprime outlet. This movie totally relies on viewer recognizing the star on the DVD cover to entice giving the movie a chance. Its not worth the buck you feed into a Redbox machine to rent it. AVOID and spend the hour and a half of your like doing something more worthwhile like try watching paint dry.

Paul Allaer Some time ago, my local art-house theater here in Cincinnati started showing the trailer for this movie (which now is 1 1/2 yr. old), and I was really looking forward to seeing it. Then the trailer disappeared, and finally this weekend the movie showed up. I figured this would not be playing long so I went to see it right away."Aloft" (2014 release from Canada-Spain-France; running time: TBD) opens with the character played by Jennifer Connelly (later we learn her name is Nana) and her two young boys, named Ivan and Gully, trying to catch a ride somewhere out in a remote 9and very cold) area in Canada. They go to a mysterious gathering of what looks to be a faith healer. Shortly thereafter we are informed "20 Years Later", where we get to know now grown-up Ivan, married and with a young baby. One day a Canadian journalist shows up out of the blue at Ivan's house. She informs him she is going up into the Arctic circle to go interview his mom and she wonders if Ivan wants to join her. At this point we're not even 15 min. into the movie but to tell you more would spoil your viewing experience.Couple of comments: firsts, this movie is written and directed by Peruvian director Claudia Llosa. She previously brought us the outstanding movie "The Milk of Sorrow", so that, along with the intriguing trailer, had given me high hopes for "Aloft". Alas, things are not that simple: "Aloft" is not a straight-forward movie, and it takes a LOT of time before I was able to piece together what the heck was going on. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but it does require serious paying attention to the movie. The director jumps back and forth between the two story lines (separated by 20 years) throughout mots of the movie. The Big Reveal comes about 75 min. into the movie, and from then on I was very much into it. Second, Jennifer Connelly brings an outstanding performance as Nana, not always a likable character. Connelly is intense and emotive. Also nice work from Cillian Murphy as the grown-up Ivan, and last but not least also kudos to the 2 boys playing the young Ivan and Gully.However, I have a major complaint about this release. It was listed at the theater and also here on IMDb as having a running time of 112 min. The version that I saw in the theater was at least 15 minutes shorter. When I started looking into it, I read the plot summary as it's posted on Wikipedia, and there I learned of several KEY PLOT points that were missing entirely from the cut that I saw. As you can imagine, I am completely disgusted with the US theatrical release and, regardless of the ultimate quality of the movie (which is not bad, although certainly not without challenges), I cannot recommend to anyone to see this movie in the theater. I have no idea whether the subsequent DVD/Blu-ray release will have the original longer version or the US shorter version, or both. Sadly, this is not the first, not the second, nor the third or last time this has happened to foreign movies being released in the US.VIEWER BEWARE!!!!!