Review of The Brand New Testament

God exists. He lives in Brussels, and he's kind of an a*shole. He spends his days in his office, inventing laws that will spoil people's lives. Until one day, his daughter Ea releases the decease dates to everyone and escapes their flat to join the real world. The first act of this movie shows great premise. Van Dormael's surrealist style gives you the joy to watch giraffes in the streets of Brussels and chickens watching movies. All of it works. Benoit Poelvorde is hilarious as a bitter, mean old man. Then Ea escapes the apartment and everything goes wrong. After releasing the decease dates, Ea is out to write a 'Brand New Testament' and has to find six apostles for some reasons. The story goes nowhere. Ea just picks six random people to be her apostles, and meets each one of them, one after another, telling them the same story about her mean dad and her brand new testament. It gets redundant after three apostles, tiring after four, and insufferable after six. The movie has countless whimsical, beautiful scenes, but they're empty. Each characters feels like an excuse for Van Dormael to shoehorn a couple quotes and more surrealist images. None of those characters feels real for a second. It's slow and dreadfully paced. You just spend the second act begging Benoit Poelvoord to come back until he finally hears your plea shortly before the end of the movie.