Movie Review: Complete Unknown (English)

Complete Unknown
Joshua Marston's Complete Unknown, which premiered at Sundance Film Festival earlier this year, carries an intriguing premise. Tantalising even. What if you, one fine day, decided to scratch what you were and start afresh? Giving yourself a brand new identity, a new look, a new profession, a chance to unlearn and learn anew. And what if you were to suddenly show up unannounced at a birthday party of one of the people you left behind in the past, some 20 years ago? These what-ifs are what play a key role in this interesting talky drama, putting questions about identity front and centre in a social-media obsessed, information-saturated world, where what you are and what you do counts mostly as a (self-serving) profiteering exercise, trading convenience at the expense of your identity. The film, after a cracker of this beguiling opening, sadly slackens and feels as if Marston wasn't sure where to go next.

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