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(NR)

Two out of four stars

When a filmmaker wins a Best Picture Oscar (and a Golden Globe) for their first feature effort (in this case in the foreign language category), the expectations for the follow-up become enormous and often insurmountable.

This is the case with Hungarian director László Nemes. To call Nemes’ “Sunset” a prime example of a sophomore slump might be a tad too harsh, but compared to his stunning and game-changing Holocaust thriller debut “Son of Saul” it is entirely fair.

Nemes’ biggest mistake was in making a movie four times as expensive as his first with a patience-testing running time of 144 minutes — and content which is depressing, confusing and comes with subtitles. For some audiences, these traits are actual pluses but for most of us they are detrimental and de facto deal-killers.

Appearing in all but a few frames of the film is newcomer Juli Jakab (think an older and sleep-deprived Emma Watson) as Irisz Leiter, an orphan since the age of two whose parents owned an eponymously-named store in Budapest which designs and sells women’s hats.

When Irisz returns home from Italy after decades away, she’s received by stern store manager Brill (Vlad Ivanov) and his rubber-stamp assistant Zelma (Evelin Dobos) as an unwelcomed party guest you don’t dare insult. You just wish they’d take your more-than-subtle advice to leave and not return, but that doesn’t work for Irisz. Her family and entire chunks of her life are gone and she wishes to reclaim a legacy that is no longer attainable.

The big problem here is that Jakab has no idea on how to play the character. This isn’t her fault as such. She’s likely doing what Nemes called on her to do but having Irisz sticking around when everyone tells her to go away while looking scared the entire time just doesn’t work. This is amplified by an omnipresent camera following Irisz in manner TMZ chases and ambushes drunken celebrities out of bars.

This technique worked well for Nemes in “Son of Saul” as it compounded the claustrophobic feel of an overpopulated concentration camp under extreme duress. Doing the same thing here – in one of the most picturesque cities on Earth – feels lazy and is a huge waste of great scenery. Sadly, all of the above takes place in the overlong first act and even worse it marks the narrative high point of the film.

The first 15 minutes of the middle act promises better things to come but it is all a big fat road to nowhere. It is here where Nemes turns the film from a semi-interesting dramatic mystery into something more along the lines of a second rate psychological horror flick with elements of “Rosemary’s Baby,” “The Usual Suspects” and Stanley Kubrick’s “Eyes Wide Shut.” A second homage to Kubrick comes late in the third act with a nod towards “Paths of Glory,” but by then our apathy has taken over and nothing Nemes could do at this point will matter.

One really can’t blame Nemes for going bigger here. He impressed a great many people who aren’t easily impressed with “Son of Saul.” And it’s likely the treatment for “Sunset” was far more engaging and fast moving than the final product Nemes actually delivered. He’s not the first director to drop the ball while going bigger and crafting a follow-up to a brilliant debut and he certainly won’t be the last.

What Nemes should do at this point is to regroup and get back to the basics with the brilliant economy of “Son of Saul.” It also wouldn’t hurt if he avoided making another period piece and kept the running time brief – somewhere between 90 and 110 minutes. Nemes can recover from this wide-reaching misstep but he will need to do so with a “less is more” mindset and subject matter perhaps of this century.

Presented in Hungarian with English subtitles.

(Sony Classics)

This article originally ran on gwinnettdailypost.com.

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