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Slow pace in the most part of the movie.

Good , But It Is Overrated By Some

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

The Cement Garden is based on a book by Ian McEwan and follows a group of siblings as they try to cope with the loss of their parents. However, there is much more to this film than merely the basic plot outline; through interesting character design, surreal locations and a gentle stream of shocking happenings; writer-director Andrew Birkin has created a truly unique and fascinating piece of cinema. Of all the films I have seen, I can't think of a single one that is really anything like this one. The film takes place in and around an isolated house surrounded by concrete (presumably on the edge of a town). The house is inhabited by two adults and four children; until the father dies of a heart attack, and the mother's health deteriorates until her eventual death shortly thereafter. This then leaves the four children to fend for themselves. The eldest siblings, Julie and Jack, decide to hide the mother's body in the basement rather than allowing themselves to go into care. The event affects each of the children in different ways.The Cement Garden is characterised by its setting; a large and morose house stands amidst a landscape made purely of concrete. This location serves the story as it creates isolation and separates the central family from the rest of the population. The film's colour scheme is based on grey and the gloominess of it helps to enforce the melancholy nature of the story. The film features plenty of shocks and breaks many taboos; but everything is presented in such a gentle manner that most of things featured actually seem quite normal, and that in turn makes them even more shocking. The film really is quite daring, and even more so for the fact that the central cast is so young. The dialogue can be quite awkward at times but the actors make the best of it. The film does become more surreal as it moves along, and while the ending of the film is not really a surprise; it still does manage to provide a shock. Overall, The Cement Garden is an excellent adaptation and well worth a look.

As aimless-46's "big wow" review states, the set is fantastic. As is the overall look of the film. The only difference is I actually liked the movie, primarily because it plays as an incredible piece of imagination rather than as any kind of shocking, deep philosophical statement.The film works best as "this is our world" rather than "forbidden love." The sense of isolation, of familial insularity is all-pervasive, probably due to Derek being the only adult character of any consequence. Both mother and father are so faintly delineated that there's no real sense of loss when they both die. Scenes where the children reflect back on them have no real power since the parents were hardly there to begin with. In fact, the film works better if you start it around 11 mins. This creates the feeling that the father has been dead for quite some time rather than very recently. The characters lack of emotional reaction to his being gone makes more sense then. Likewise the mother's illness becomes something that has been going on for a significant length of time, so that when she too dies, it doesn't change much--the children have already adjusted to living w/o her.I could go on in a similar vein as there's so much which doesn't really make a lot of sense when looked at too closely. What makes it work is the kind of otherworldly shimmer Birkin gives the story. It frees the viewer up from having to parse it for cues to deeper meaning in the real world, so that we can get a feeling of what it's like to live in a very obsessive, very small world where your older sister is a disturbing little tease and your brother is a 15yr old version of Jim Morrison.Aimless-46's review touches on Birkin's artsy pretentiousness, and yeah, it's definitely there. Fortunately, Birkin is so inept when it comes to symbology that it works in the film's favor. The flashbacks to the beach scenes were probably meant to be something very specific, but they're presented in such an uncoordinated manner (and at such random points in the narrative) as to be utterly mysterious, heightening the sense of disconnection from reality. Then there's the voice-overs (in a Saturday morning cartoon announcer's voice) of the cheesy space novel Jack is reading, which should be really weak attempts at ironic commentary, except for the quoted passages seem to have nothing to do with the Jack/Julie storyline. Or, in fact, anything in the movie at all. And, of course, there's the "Naked Jack in the Rain" scene, possibly intended as ...well, I have no idea. Something metaphysical, I suppose, although the way it's shot it seems like little more than cooling off in the rain on a hot sweaty night.Birkin (following Macgowan's lead in the book?) appears to be trying to say something profound about gender, but it's laughable, which gives the movie some needed levity at key moments. By striving (one imagines) to depict the universal, Birkin ends up adding character depth. Julie dressing the youngest boy Tom up as a girl comes off not as a statement about gender identity, but rather as a hint that Julie has an actual sense of humor. Jacks's discovery of Tom, wearing a ridiculous wig and playing at husband and wife with his friend William, underlines Jack's essential cluelessness. Even after Tom informs him that they're playing at being Jack and Julie, Jack doesn't seem to get it. Or care.The only thing keeping me back from handing out a 10 for this one is the intrusive subplot of Derek. Nevermind that there's no particular explanation for why a successful 33yr old is perving around trying to score with a barely legal teenager, or how in hell he figures out that a locker down in the basement of a very large house contains the cement-entombed body of said teenager's recently departed mother. The guy is just annoying, popping up at all the wrong moments. His "he's your brother!" scene is aggravating. It's like "yeah, we know, OK? That's kind of the point of the movie." Derek is unwanted voice of sanity in a movie that really doesn't need one.The whole incest angle would be icky if it were presented in anything like a realistic context. Since it's played out in a world so completely imaginary that we can't even tell what decade it is, it succeeds in being erotic--a glimpse into a world so private and self-contained that it succeeds in being its own self-generated heat source.

It's a real pity that 'Name Of The Rose' scriptwriter Andrew Birkin hasn't directed anything since 'The Cement Garden' if this puzzling and disturbing movie is any indication of his talent. Birkin also wrote this superb adaptation of Ian McEwan's perverse and haunting novel. A hypnotic study of a family of children left to fend for themselves, while wrestling with their forbidden desires and obsessions, it crosses over into almost Ballardian territory. The casting of Andrew Robertson and Charlotte Gainsbourg as the androgynous older siblings is the main reason why this odd movie is so successful. To add to the incestuous overtones, Gainsbourg is Birkin's niece, and first gained notoriety duetting with her legendary father Serge on a pop ditty titled "Lemon Incest" while barely in her teens. The layers continue by Birkin casting his own son Ned as the younger cross-dressing brother. This is a very strange and beautiful movie. Highly recommended.

Disarmingly strange film about a family of children fending for themselves after first their father, then their mother dies. Oldest son Jack eschews responsibility, leaving next oldest Julie to handle the everyday chores. In the midst of all these devestating changes, Jack and Julie begin to develop a singularly unusual bond, one that is threatened when Julie invites the outside world into their private domain by dating an older man.This film sparks comparisons to the similarly themed OUR MOTHER'S HOUSE, but the two films differ dramatically. While the children in OUR MOTHER'S HOUSE construct an elaborate fantasy world for themselves(based in part on the dead mother's fanatic religious beliefs), there's no such pretentious in THE CEMENT GARDEN. The children live in a cinder block house, with a cement garden out back, on a plot surrounded by a flat, desolate looking landscape. There are several scenes where the children sit around saying nothing, doing nothing, something that never happens in the other film's active household. The costumes and household furnishings are nondescript; you can't figure out if this film is set in the sixties or the nineties. The overall feel is one of banality, lethargy, and a total absence of passion or vitality. Perhaps it's only in a situation like this that the relationship Jack and Julie have can flourish, and Jack can transform from a petulant, self-absorbed boy to a responsible, loving young man. Strange atmosphere, but very rewarding.