Blindness
This, contra the subject of my previous post, appears to be worth your while.
This is based on the excellent novel by Nobel Prize winner Jose Saramago. The novel is a fast--because absolutely gripping--read; I hope you'll have a chance to read it before going to see the film. The premise: an unexplained blindness suddenly strikes masses of people worldwide, and world governments quarantine the afflicted in compounds of various sorts in their attempts to halt the spread, dropping off food to them but otherwise leaving them to fend for themselves. It is not pretty, as you might imagine. There is squalor and violence as the need to survive leads to the emergence of baser instincts in some. But there is also courage and decency and love--it seems that the need to survive can also bring out our better angels.
Fans of McCarthy's The Road should like Blindness as well. Though their premises are very different and they end in different ways, they traverse much the same thematic terrain. In fact, while reading The Road I was struck by the similarity of its texture to that of Saramago's novel.
It sounds strange to say, "Go see Blindness" but, well, you should. Or at least read the novel.
UPDATE: Christopher Orr's review of the film isn't positive, but he does raise the question I did in comments of how, given film's inherently visual nature, this particular film would deal with a text most of whose characters cannot see.
