Thursday, April 02, 2009

Keira Knightley gets the sh*t kicked out of her in the name of Women's Aid.


New two-minute UK spot for Women's Aid lensed by Atonement director Joe Wright. Certainly powerful, but the execution is off, in my humble opinion. The spot should have been played the whole way like we were watching Knightley act in a scene, then paid off. By starting on set, then entering the real world, then having Knightley break the fourth wall by pleading to the crew/audience is just confusing. Also, too heavy-handed. Created by the London office of Grey. previous domestic violence ad. previous baby violence ad. previous statutory rape ads.

5 Comments:

Blogger .jpg said...

But the idea that she can't "call cut" is the whole point of the spot. However, the scenario you suggest would have made for a powerful spot too b/c of her star power. But I wonder if people would have thought it was a movie trailer?

As far as being heavy handed, I find that commercials usually only deal with the aftermath because they're afraid they'll turn people off. But domestic abuse is brutal and I'm glad this one took it on full force. It's about time we see how cowardly folks who beat up their spouses are.

Regardless of our different opinions, many thanks for sharing. I'm definitely going to show this to others.

9:47 AM  
Blogger copyranter said...

thanks, .jpg. My heavy-handed comment is about the broken mirror/blood trail stuff. I agree that showing the actual violence is effective.

9:51 AM  
Anonymous buzzwaffle said...

I think the mirror shows his uncontrolled anger and the blood suckers us into his vulnerability,
both building the scary tension.
You sense her tension when she sees him above and it builds as she gets closer. She follows the trail of blood and he comes from behind. She has the normal caring response and then he has his way.

I think it works.

4:21 PM  
Blogger J said...

And they've pulled the ad now. Nothing helps get a message out like the strong arm style of copyright bigfooting. Yay, for not knowing what the hell you're doing!

4:27 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Copyranter...

I think it needs to be as heavy handed as possible to get people posting and talking about the issue. It certainly lacks some finesse, but sometimes you have to be tacky to keep people's attention.

7:51 PM  

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