User reviews

I wanted to watch it because of Ed Harris (brilliant actor), but he has only got a very small part. That's the first real disappointment.

More bad: this movie is simply going nowhere. Supposedly a drama, but it didnt move me one bit, due to really below average acting performances by actors without any charisma.

The direction is toothless. Just bland.

Not any good then? Well, it aint terrilby bad. It's not a B-movie, they really tried to make something decent, but they utterly failed anyway...

There will no doubt be a lot of disappointed reviews of this film given it heavily markets itself as a film with Ed Harris as the star when, in fact, he has about four minutes of screen time here.

That aside what you have is an interesting idea for a film which, in the end, doesn't quite live up to its script.

Edited out of sequence, to presumably try to interject some interest or drama, it becomes a slightly confused film. For a film that has principally two leads its important they they both be competing characters. The lead actor, also the writer and director, is the main focus of the film and perhaps should have remained behind the camera as the performance given is at times uneven and not very convincing.

The film is quite well shot, though occasionally lighting changes from camera angle to camera angle, enhancing the confusion over the editing and timeline.

Clearly a film made on a limited budget and with a simple but interesting idea at its heart which it sort of fails to explore in any satisfactory way.

The title was quite a clever double meaning though combined with the 'horror movie' style poster perhaps this also is more misleading than helpful.

This is one of the most boring and weird movies i have ever watched. Nothing happens. Nothing. A couple on a boat has an argument, and the wife goes to an island. And thats it. Nothing more. Trust me. I used to respect Ed Harris, who has made some great movies in the past, as The Rock, Glen Garry Glen Ross and a whole bunch more. But seeing him in this utter trash, has altered my view on him. Avoid this movie, or waste time you will never ever get back.

The 1 star rating is because I couldn't see any half stars, or 'zero' an option. So the 1 star goes to the brooding presence of Ed Harris and his character spewing off his hatred for women. Yet he's only onscreen for maybe 10 mins max?

The rest is abominable drivel. An utterly hopeless effort at some kind of allegory, suggesting this dim, annoying couple are starting the human race all over again a la Adam & Eve, on an uninhabited island. That kind of idea that might work on paper, in book form, or dealt with by talented screenwriters and filmmakers.

As it is, with it's Teenager, lame dialogue, it was no more than an excuse for the lead actress to get her kit off and show the world her breasts. And I don't say that lightly: the nude scenes were utterly gratuitous, same for the totally unbelievable and unnecessary sex scenes. The final one on the beach is downright comical in it's effort to be hard drama, thought-provoking and serious.

Again, this was all about HER getting her clothes off on camera to show the world her breasts. Absolutely dire nonsense which should never have been funded.

He had it all.. Excellent locations , good actors.. a good premise to story that most of us can relate to. And then he waste it all , almost intentionally.

What a waste of potential.

This movie was made by somebody who knows nothing about anything. I mean, seriously. No continuity in the story line. Terrible acting. Poor Ed Harris had to be affiliated with this movie. He's normally so great. I hope he hasn't watched it. I feel like I've witnessed someone's abstract fever dream who woke up with an idea of what their dream was about but then wrote it down two days later at a bar with their friends, after a few beers and then blackmailed some producer into making it on a dare. Then, during the production of this movie, they had the novel idea of asking the whole crew for ideas for different scenes, put them into a had, and then drew the ideas at random out of this hat and refused to organize them into any sort of sensible order. If this movie ever wins a single award, I will lose all faith in the film industry.

Impressive!!

Although there were a few things that didn't connect well with me, for the most part, this was an impressive independent film. And I ADORED the theme's!!

After watching this film, the title is just good advice!!

Ed Harris, is superb, as always. I think Braun is just a natural! Martin's acting is a little more self conscious but I didn't let that hinder my enjoyment of the over all experience.

The cinematography is beautiful but sadly, not fully taken advantage of. I assume that's probably due to lack of funds.(I don't think it was lack of imagination or creativity)

The direction and camera work was phenomenal.

The score was unique and beautiful, but a little mismatched in a few places.

The screenplay/story is really neat!! And I appreciated the themes it conveyed.

Overall, a lot better and more meaty, than a lot of more popular chicken fluff that mainstream movie makers are producing.

Would love to see more from these creators as they learn and grow.

This movie has a lot of things going for it. Ed Harris is of course phenomenal, but the rest of the actors do a great job keeping pace with his skill level. The soundtrack is beautiful. The script, while minimal, really plays with genre and sense of reality in a very bold way. I read an Ebert's review that all of the boat scenes were done on an actual boat, showcasing some serious skill and discipline from the crew. Even the end credits are beautiful, sparkling hand-drawn portraits.

The film does seem to bite off more than it can chew with such a collection of talent; there are jarring tonal issues between different moments in the film, as the different artists are highlighted at different times. I suggest watching the movie as though trying to experience a series of vignettes, rather than as a cohesive melodrama. This also does much to enhance the reality-bending themes that the film tries to evoke.

Was a book that was written back in the 90's about relationships & the problems encountered by men & women. It was often used as source material by a girlfriend that I had dated at the time. This movie reminds me of that book.

Boy meets girl, boy falls for girl & he manages to win her heart. But boy looses girl & to win her back, a sailing adventure is devised to explore the world. What could go wrong on a romantic cruise for 2 at the mercy of the sea? Of course things don't go to plan & both are miserable together with no where to hide from each other on the small boat.

Firstly I read some of the reviews before going into this & the reviews were extremely polarized. There were only 2 positive reviews with everyone else slagging it. After watching the movie, I'm not sure everyone saw the same movie as I did.

First off I can definitely say that I enjoyed this movie. There is a good amount of backstory done through flashbacks. Ed Harris plays the domineering, misogynist father whose larger than life persona is seen in flashbacks & his effect on his son's present relationship. We see this relationship from a He said, She said point of view that was done quite well . I enjoyed the pacing & each scene held my attention.

So does a book about relationships in the 90's have any relevance today? Well the issues that people face today haven't really changed much. Are women still viewed as the weaker sex? Because that is how she is viewed by him.

When on the island, he assumes that she must be hungry with supplies running low. So he tries to catch fish to woo her back but he fails in his execution. And unlike Survivor, there is no immunity necklace to stave off elimination. It was funny when he shows up with some sardines & she's eating lobster. So Are Men from Mars & Women from Venus? The director would like you to believe so, & really there is nothing wrong with that.

If you enjoy movies like One Week, Copenhagen, or Pieces of April for example...then give this a shot. Its worth a watch.

Early on in Get Away If You Can - written by, directed by, and starring Dominique Braun and Terrence Martin - TJ (Martin) tells his father (Ed Harris) a brief story in order to justify the unbridled sea voyage that TJ and his wife Domi (Braun) will attempt to rejuvenate their languishing marriage. TJ tells his dad that when white explorers settled the land we would come to know as civilized America, some settlers moved into the wilderness to live with the Indigenous peoples discovered there. Meanwhile, natives came to live peacefully with the white settlers. And after some time passed, a number of the Native Americans gleefully returned to the harsh wilderness from which they'd come, but for some of the white settlers who had ventured into the wilderness of America, they refused to return to the safety of their brethren. They elected instead to remain with the "savages," as TJ's father would smugly refer to them. They chose for themselves a life of untethered and perhaps even uncertain freedom. They gave up the life they'd always known.

The story innocuously finds its way into Braun-Martin's family passion project, but you'll hear the echoes of it over the course of Get Away If You Can, a 90-minute cautionary tale of regret and romance (in no particular order) that passionately explores the fragile nature of love and the reinvigorating power of unadulterated nature (also in no particular order). And that story has no hint of an unhappy ending. As Get Away If You Can continues, we hope the same for this one.

The film tells the naturalistically raw story of a troubled married couple - Domi and TJ (Braun and Martin) - who have been drifting apart for some time. Encouraged by TJ's alpha male father (Ed Harris) and Domi's sister (Martina Gusman) to separate once and for all, the couple hopes that an open-ocean sail might reignite their marriage. However, they arrive at a dangerous deserted island and suddenly their marriage and physical lives are in peril. Now, they'll try to save both in a place far from the world of comfort that they've come to know.

The film's organic approach to storytelling - from the first uncomfortable moments of the film through the dizzying cinematic scans of the deserted island - remains its greatest asset. The movie, meanwhile, is sparsely cast, and the fewer hands on deck with a production of this nature, the better. (Only TJ's brother (Riley Smith) - caught in the middle of his brother's wishes to save his marriage and his father's wishes to see Domi sent packing - has gone uncredited in this review so far.) And with so few published production notes outlining the specifics of this particular film, it appears likely that the screenwriting team of Braun-Martin scripted the cast's responses to the movie's central conflicts to some effect. But in the hands of the performers Braun-Martin themselves, the script takes on an improvisational tone at every turn. This allows the film's unsettling moments of marital disquietude feel unsettlingly real - this also allows the film's propitiously romantic moments of marital bliss feel uniquely decadent. Weaving in and out of the film's central narrative - moving back and forth and to and fro from the more trying times in the couple's marriage to their best efforts to discover themselves anew on a deserted island and then back again - the film is consistently buoyed by the seemingly unscripted delivery of all of the film's players.

In this way, Get Away If You Can at all times feels like a living, breathing document of a marriage that we know and understand, even if we've never seen one like this up close. With its nonlinear storytelling, the film is more akin to watching a documentary about wild animals in their native habitat when all we've ever known is what they look like in a municipal zoo. It harkens back to both the raw unease of Derek Cianfrance's Blue Valentine and the twilight tenderness of Richard Linklater's Before trilogy yet insists itself masterfully as an incomparably independent thing. Aided by a team of cinematographers that breathe as much life into the topography of this island as the performers breathe life into the pain and serenity of its characters, the movie always feels like an intimate production of many like-minded producers with the shared, conspicuous goal of simply cataloging life, were it ever simple. They make it look easy.

So when faced with a lifestyle antithetical to what would make you truly happy, flee from it. Get Away If You Can. And when faced with the possibility of going somewhere that will inject happiness into your veins - happiness having been absent from your blood for so long - you should go, immediately. Get Away If You Can. At all times throughout Braun-Martin's film, the audience understands the duality of the film's title, and no translation - one or the other - ever maintains more power over the other. In fact, the different sums of both proverbs appear to hang in the wind like the varied instruments of an orchestral concert - just like Domi and TJ, both in need of one another simultaneously. Such is the synchronicity that the film demonstrates throughout: every relationship has its difficulties - even on a deserted island where you only trouble one another - but it's the rest of the world in which relationships try to thrive where those relationships often cannot survive.

Get away if you can.

What goes unspoken on the wind is that command for you to take stock of your surroundings at all times. And do it more often than not. It's the only way you'll ever truly understand if you're finally home, having moved that new home somewhere far, far away from where you once were. And if you find that you're not yet home - again: get away if you can.