Separation
Directed by William Brent Bell

A lot of you are probably wondering what this movie is, which is a sensible question because even though it was out in theaters for weeks, I never saw a single ad for it. Not a trailer, not a poster, no buzz online, the only way I found about it was from glancing through the ‘Now Playing’ list at my local theater, and even then I was a little apprehensive. A lot of what’s playing right now, Spiral, A Quiet Place II, that new 101 Dalmatians thing, I saw trailers for all of them before the movie theaters shut down last year. Not so for Separation. Separation was snuck into theatres right as they were opening up, and now it’s being ushered out when real movies like A Quiet Place II will be taking up that real estate. I can’t blame anyone not wanting to promote Separation though, because it is mind-bogglingly awful. Such a shockingly bad movie that I’m fascinated how it even got made and how no one caught any of the mistakes that any viewer would notice no matter how little attention they were paying to the screen. Now that I’ve played my cards and revealed how I feel about Separation I’ll just say that spoilers are incoming and this is going to be more of a rant session than a review. Hope you can still have fun with that.

Please Try To Keep Up, This Is A Very Involved Plot.

Separation starts with a girl, Jenny, playing by herself in an attic while Brilliant Artist Man (insert name here) shows the babysitter old drawings of his, which she finds charming and not sad and pathetic. Brilliant Artist Man’s Bitch Wife arrives home just in time for Jenny to fall off a damn rafter in the attic, which looks to be a good ten feet off the ground. Bitch Wife berates Brilliant Artist Man for not having a job while he fires back that Jenny was staying up late to see her because she’s never around and is always working at her dad’s office. This is apparently the last straw for Bitch Wife because she immediately files for divorce and a bitter custody battle ensues. This culminates in a screaming match on the phone between Brilliant Artist Man and Bitch Wife where Bitch Wife turns straight evil and screams that Brilliant Artist Man will never see Jenny again and that she belongs to her. Bitch Wife then gets absolutely demolished by a passing car, solving Brilliant Artist Man’s problems pretty quickly. Then nothing happens for an hour and a half except sometimes ghosts show up and stand there. Oh and then the babysitter was behind everything because she secretly lusted after Brilliant Artist Man because he is a Brilliant Artist and all women are evil/crazy in this movie.

Separation Runs Out Of The Gate – And Falls Through An Open Manhole.

I can’t list every small detail that Separation gets wrong, so let’s just stick with the big things that make no damn sense. In the opening scene, Bitch Wife takes Jenny, who only has a small cut from her TEN FOOT FALL ON HER HEAD, and takes her to the car to head to the hospital, she can’t actually go to the hospital because there are three sets in this movie they could shoot at, and they weren’t adding a one scene hospital sequence, when they all walk outside it is noontime bright. Seconds after Brilliant Artist Man remarked that it was past 10 PM. THIS IS THE FIRST SCENE. Was this supposed to be a day-for-night shot and they forgot to do the effect? Did no one look at any of the footage while editing it? I saw this movie with my wife and we both thought it was the next day at sunrise. That is how Separation starts.

Maybe This Guy Isn’t Such A Great Dad If He Constantly Gambles With His Daughter’s Life?

Beyond not knowing how the sun works, Separation doesn’t know anything about how anything else works either. When Brilliant Artist Man orders food for him and Jenny, he orders one Kung Pao Chicken (a solid choice) and one Kung Pao Chicken with no peanuts because my daughter is deathly allergic. Aside from him basically looking into the camera and saying FORESHADOWING during this, I can’t imagine any restaurant hearing this and giving them that order! Liability would be insane, because cross-contamination is damn near unavoidable with some foods, so no restaurant would take that chance. And secondly, if your kid is deathly allergic to peanuts, ORDER SOMETHING ELSE. You think your kid will never get the containers mixed up or the restaurant might mess up the order or even you could give her the wrong thing? Just get meatball subs and call it a day! And then Brilliant Artist Man has a FAMILY SIZED TUB of peanut butter on the counter within easy reach of everyone. This alone is ridiculous and impossible to take seriously, but it gets worse.

I Refuse To Believe No One In Hollywood Knows How Divorce And Child Custody Hearings Work.

Once Bitch Wife is dead, Bitch Wife’s Bitch Lawyer Dad begins the process of suing Brilliant Artist Man so he can get custody of his granddaughter. Now I’m no high-falutin’ lawyer, but there is not a family court in America that would take a girl whose mother just died away from her dad, who recently got a job and has a babysitter and seems to love and care for his daughter, but the movie treats this as a real threat. Wait a second. Bitch Wife’s Bitch Dad is a big-shot lawyer. This guy runs a law office, employs his daughter who has a child, and makes her work 13 hour days? That doesn’t make any goddamn sense! Bitch Wife was a trust fund baby, why did she even need to get a job?!? Make up your goddamn mind movie, you can’t just put things in because you’ve seen them in other movies, they need to fit the narrative!

Oh Look, A Ghost.

The pacing of Separation is glacial, trundling along aimlessly as scenes pointlessly pile up on top of each other with no rhyme or reason. If you took 90% of the scenes in Separation, shuffled them randomly, and watched them, there would be no difference in your viewing experience than if you had just watched the theatrical cut. If I was being incredibly generous I could say that having the ghosts appear is some attempt to build tension, but there’s never an escalation of what happens with these ghosts. All they ever do is stand there or walk slowly toward you in a weird way. Maybe this could be spooky if these ghosts had some unique visuals but these are just ripoffs or stuff we’ve seen a thousand times before. Oh no, a ghost in red. Oh no, a clownish marionette monster who appeared in a dream. Whatever will I do?

Wow, This Brownstone Sure Is Scary. Let’s Keep Looking At It.

And these visuals are even worse because this movie is so cheap-looking. Damn near every scene happens in one of three locations, even if it doesn’t make any sense for it to happen there. When the inevitable allergic reaction to peanuts happens, another character is injured by a chandelier and knocked unconscious. When the EMTs examine her, instead of taking her to a hospital or even looking her over in the ambulance, she’s just in a bed. And they say, oh, you just hit your head, you don’t need any more medical attention, just go to sleep and don’t worry about possible concussions or lingering after-effects, and they leave her there. Aside from that, we’re just cycling back and forth between this house, Brilliant Artist Man’s new office, and the subway. And no, nothing interesting happens in any of those locations.

Not Since Slenderman Have I Been This Bored In A Theater.

I’m not shocked there wasn’t any advertising for Separation. This seems like a production where everyone gave up as soon as they started, so why would the marketing be any different? And this isn’t funny bad, it’s just sad. I’m sure there were a lot of talented people working on this movie and I don’t understand at all how something this bad could come out of that. With how absurd the dynamics between Brilliant Artist Man, his Bitch Wife, and Crazy Babysitter, this feels more like someone on the production staff working through their feelings after a messy divorce. If so, however you gotta deal with it, at least you’re dealing with it. But there’s no reason for anyone else to watch this.