Sabrina Portman This was a terrible, terrible movie! Oh my god, I can't even get the words out. It's freaking' dramatic. As in 'dramatically bad', not as in 'this is a dramatic movie'. Oh my word.I did not have one moment where I empathized or sympathized with any of the characters other than the older dude doing the dishes whose name I don't even remember. This movie tries to portray Halam as if he's freaking' endearing (or understandable) when he's busy spying on people, with those typical background tunes and everything, and he's not. He's a creep, he's creepy, he peeks into windows when people are unsuspectingly doing their own things. And the ending just confirmed my feelings. I wish it wasn't so, all the while I was wishing I would stop seeing him as a creep but I didn't. Terrible movie. Voyeurism is not endearing, no matter how troubled you are.

bob_bear The eponymous Hallam is quickly established as a creepy, totally self-obsessed, loser. One who treats everyone with contempt. One who speaks to his father and step-mother in a way that deserves a good slap that never comes. Instead he is indulged for god knows why and consequently I didn't care about him, his dysfunctional family or his boo-hoo poor me plight.There is nothing wrong with the art direction or the acting. Both are of a higher caliber than one expects from a cheapo Brit movie. No, it's the characters and plot that stink.A character based drama should have characters you are interested in even if you don't like like them. I wasn't intrigued, I was offended. How long before I switched off? Probably 15 minutes -- the gruesome assignation up in the tree house between step-mother and son was the last straw. Life is too short to suffer tripe like this.

Martin P Hallam Foe tells us the story about a boy who lost his mother and experiences some sort of Oedepus complex afterward.It is something like 95 minutes long but would be better in ten. There's like an hour in the middle where he is doing climbing practice on rooftops, and habits in a church tower like Quasimodo (only he is much less sympathetic).There's a strange love story involved which doesn't have anything to do with anything. She happens to look like his mother, yes so what? We know he misses his mother, that's what the first ten minutes were about. They should just have put the beginning and ending together and it would have been a O.K. short film. Now it's a portrait of a character who doesn't change. He is a guy that stuff happens to. The only active choice he has in the whole middle of the movie is to apply for a job.There's this whole Oedepus thing going on which is supposed to make us analyze his character. He paints his face, dresses in women's clothing and wears a dead Badger on his head. A Badger! You've got to see the ending! He returns to his home with the badger on his head (and it is shot like a tacky Horror film) to kill his dad's new wife (which he had sex with in the beginning). And somehow they thought this wouldn't be entertaining enough so they put some indie punk music in the background. I've got to admit though, I'm kind of allergic to films that want to write a psychological complex on your nose. It feels like this MacKenzie director/guy/whatever is trying to show us that he also has been studying psychology in school. You are so smart! Thank you for bringing all these forgotten theories back into our memories! You really dug! What a Wallraff! Okay so now I realized this film is based on some random book, but anyway..Photowise it is boring. A lot of talking heads. Plus the editor has changed the colors from scene to scene, you know cold and warm etc.. why? maybe "Hallam Foe" is both a feature and a test film for color blind people. Or maybe they just thought that the drama wouldn't be enough to tell us that he feels lonely, so they increased blue so that we really get it.I'm not even gonna comment on the cliché indie-oh-how-how-how-cute drawings they have made in the presentation. And all the "cute" sex stuff going on. This whole film is an independent cliché. But I do recommend it. I laughed more than a few times. Though it is really annoying to be a film student and to see how crap like this gets through the machine.

ricstar Whilst watching the film I couldn't help but feel that I shouldn't be liking this film as I watched it because of it's quite dark themes. However, I found this film very pleasant to watch because of its warm settings and engaging cinematography. The story was also complimented by the light-hearted music, taking a dark edge off of a dark theme to produce a thought-provoking film.The acting was well done - especially parts involving the sexual tension. I must say that I felt the ending was a bit of an anticlimax, however, the ending seemed to be in keeping with the style of the film, resulting in an overall success.