Rent Bellflower (2011)

Heartbreak, Blowtorches, and a Can of Lynx - Bellflower review by griggs

Bellflower wants to be a poetic howl about love, masculinity, and the end of the world—but mostly it’s just lads sulking and setting things on fire. There’s definitely something admirable about how scrappy and handmade it all feels. The Mad Max fantasies, the DIY flamethrowers—it’s the stuff of late-night stoner chats made real. Shame it’s all so overwrought. The visuals are bold but headachey, and the characters are more brooding than interesting. You can squint and see a good idea somewhere in the smoke, but it’s buried under too much self-importance and not enough heart. It’s got ambition, I’ll give it that—but ambition alone doesn’t make a film good. It makes it loud, messy, and just a bit exhausting.