I saw the high ratings and decided to watch this movie. I couldn't believe this was it! The slowest and the dullest movie ever, I sometimes cringed. The main character's acting was the weirdest ever: facial expressions without shedding any tear (?) I mean what happened to her was horrid and brutal, but she couldn't convey that through her acting. Benjamin's lines were poor as hell, come on, that guy was stiff as a piece of wood. I could sense he wanted to talk more but couldn't do that, especially during the scene with James, his brother. On the other hand, Ethel was just 'eh'. Low budget movie, the story was good I was expecting something like 12 years a slave or Django Unchained vibe, but nope. Lastly the thing that bothered me was the fact that the title means something entirely different from the actual plot. SPOILER ALERT I don't see where's the link between rising free and get married with someone you encounter by chance and have a kid? Not that I am an ultra feminist or something, but I was expecting more from Nakomei, not just a settle down as every woman on the planet. This movie was truly a disappointment.

I gave this 3/10 just because of the photography and the beautiful sightseeing. Plot and most importantly dialogues couldn't keep up with the wonderful view.

Before I begin, it is so interesting to do some digging and realize how most ratings for this film (giving it a 9 or 10 star rating) comes from profiles who have joined IMDB for the exact same time, curiously having rated just one single title: Rising Free. Hmm...

Anyways. I tend to watch between 130~150 new movies every year (not counting those you rewatch from time to time),and because of that, I believe I got enough "cultural baggage" to compare titles, to say this one is just plain awful when it comes to character development and dialogue, not to mention poor acting to top it off. I actually found myself chuckling from time to time, facing the so many disconnected actions amongst characters and clichés.

I managed to watch 30 minutes before leaving the room. As you realize throughout the first 5~10 minutes just how robotic and artificial the actor's lines are, you simply cannot wash this feeling off, as the next scenes keeps coming. You'll naturally force yourself to analyse each new spoken line critically, because the coherence is so weird that the entire plot becomes dull, and you stop enjoying the story just to criticize the bad writing. There is no way around it, you cannot follow along, because things do not flow naturally.

This is the first work by the writer and director, so I hope my piece of criticism can help them evolve and get better. Guys, do some more study about the human nature. Behavior. How people acatually react to situations in our daily lives. If you've never been into this or that kind of situation, do some research on people who have, just don't go writing it off from the top of your mind, or else you'll risk getting flat characters with dubious dialogues like that.

Nothing here is right: the script - ridiculous, the dialogues - utterly unrealistic, the acting - cringe worthy. When the heroes are chased, rather than run for cover (there are woods around) they just keep to the clearing. When there's an emergency, they look on rather than jump into action. The characters are just flat. An over-acted tortured expression is the most common occurrence throughout the film. Watching this movie is like watching a human-like robot convey an algorithm written message of love - it follows the rules, but you can tell something's off; it just fails to elicit any feeling. The only thing I enjoyed in this film were the frequent images of nature and the ocean. Other than that - it's just terrible.