The film is a profound disappointment in part because it feels so overdetermined to live up to Sono and Cage’s respective brands.
Daniel Y-Li Grove would rather get a rise out of his audience than craft interesting characters or a coherent cultural milieu.
To dismiss it as simply an act of hipster appropriation is to cop out, because appropriation is the film’s thematic meat.
A weighty topic receives lush but eventually contrived treatment in Circumstance.