This afternoon I had the misfortune to sit through two hours of torture going by the name of Little Children
No, what made me sit there wanting to pull every one of my teeth out was the voice-over.
I'm not against voice-overs. I've even used them myself. There are some great films and TV dramas that use them to tremendous, ironic effect: Citizen Kane
Not in this case. Right from the off, some random bloke blabbers all over every scene, telling me what the characters are feeling and doing, like I can't work it out for myself! Who is he? Why is he telling me all this crap? Why doesn't he shut the fuck up?
I waited in vain for this narrator to be revealed as someone essential to the drama unfolding, but no, he just gave up and apparently died two thirds of the way through, too late to stop me stabbing myself in the thigh with a penknife to relieve the pain. Then right at the end the fucker woke up again and explained what I'd been watching for the last two hours.
How could this anachronistic abomination happen in a movie, here, in the year 2006?
Was it clueless screenwriting? Was it slapdash, cut n paste adaptation? Or was it some executive producer panicking at focus group feedback and demanding every single thing be explained just for the benefit of any retard who happened to wander into the theatre?
Who knows? I gave up asking in the end. I'm now thinking of starting a campaign to get film classification boards to add a V.O. Warning to offending films. Something like 'The following film contains insultingly obvious voice-over narration that may well offend the intellect of your pet dog.'
That should do it.