The Mill (2023) is a mystery sci fi movie directed by Sean King O’Grady. It deals with a man who wakes up in a room that has no ceiling. It only has a mill in the middle of it that he is forced to turn. If he misses his daily quota, he is punished. Below is my The Mill (2023) movie review
This is the type of movie that has nothing going on in it. When we are introduced to the man, he exhibits qualities of a man who does not give up. He gave everything to the company and he expects to be treated better. However, he soon realizes that his cries for help are going unnoticed. His only communication is with his next door neighbor who gives him advice on what to do to survive. His neighbor literally sounds like he recorded his lines in a sound booth.
This goes on for the majority of the movie. He tries something, it goes wrong, he becomes defeated. Then he does better, gets rewarded, and decides to not give up for the sake of his family. Again, this goes on for a while. It evolves a lot of sweating, yelling, pleading, talking, and other forms of emotions. This all culminates to an ending that is not satisfactory. Think of it as a rugpull for the audience that just through at least 80 min of nonsense.
One could argue this is a story of survival and man’s fight to provide for his family. Since the man has a pregnant wife at home, everything he did he did for her. There is also something to be said about these giant companies that always desire more but rarely compensate people for that hard work. The movie does try to give us this message of people working like slaves and companies not caring. However, this social commentary has been done before and is not very imaginative. There is nothing new here. It could have been MUCH better.
This is one of those movies that is set in one setting. This is used to break the man’s spirit. It also does not help that he can hear other people around them struggling as well as being tortured for missing their daily quota. The fact that he is able to work through this and keep going shows us that he is a very strong individual, both physically and mentally.
As for the ending, it is as weak as it gets. We get a man who went through hell only to be told ….well I won’t spoil it in case you want to see it. You exp[ect it be something big, some type of a fight, a bad guy reveal. However, nothing like that happens. It is disappointing. The movie dragged itself out and felt much longer than it is, just for this ending? Actually, disappointing does not scratch the surface.
Overall the movie is bland. There is not much happening here and there are not enough characters to make it interesting. There is not much violence, nothing of substance at least. The cinematography is fine but not interesting. You got a guy in a room without a ceiling going through days by working and sleeping. It gets boring really fast. The movie is not badly made, just very bland and boring.
Thanks for reading my The Mill (2023) movie review
