A Clean, Well Lighted Place

In “A Clean Well-Lighted Place,” the older waiter and the younger waiter are kind of different versions of one person. Between the film and the story, I thought that mostly, it was done very well. Even though it was hard to understand, I did like their accents. I thought it added something to the story that I can’t really explain. It was set in a kind of foreign environment, and the Irish accents added something to the story that I couldn’t have done myself. The actors did well with the parts that they had. The young waiter got on my nerves, and that’s a good thing because in the story he did too.

                But the film had a lot more downsides. As with any film coming from a written piece, they didn’t do everything ‘by the book,’ and it always annoys me when they miss key points in the story. For example, in the very beginning, the old man should be sitting under the leaves of a tree in the shadows. Instead, in the film, he was sitting in a booth under a light. It’s completely reversed and it kills the symbolism. If I had made this myself, I would try to follow everything the best I could to get the true meaning across.