The Owls

The acting performances and the technical aspects of The Owls are all top quality, but I found the central narrative structure unworkable. The actors occasionally step out of character to comment on the film, for instance. More basically, though, none of the characters engaged me more than intermittently, and the narrative shifts increased rather than diminished my emotional distance from the story. The ending was at once both too heavy and too flippant, but rather than one leavening the other, they intensified both extremes. Recommended for fans of Cheryl Dunye, but a question mark for general audiences.