TL;DR – A film that does a fantastic job of setting up a world and mystery that unfortunately can’t sustain itself all the way to the end.

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene.

Disclosure – I paid for the Netflix service that viewed this film.

Warning – Some scenes may cause distress.

Ashes Review –

Today, we dive back into the world of romance but with a side of danger as we explore Turkish cinema for the first time properly on the site. Romance films can be fascinating because they can meld and merge into so many different genres and take on a broad scope of tone. In today’s film, we dive into the harder edge of the genre, where danger awaits.

So to set the scene, from all appearances, Gökçe (Funda Eryigit) is living her best life. She is a successful publisher with a talent for picking good manuscripts, something that has made her husband Kenan (Mehmet Günsür) fabulously wealthy. But her life feels like it is missing something, missing a lot of things. But when a manuscript called Kül arrives, she is immediately transported into its prose. Being captured by its narrative, it awakens a joy that she had not realised was missing. But when she discovers the bakery in the book is real, and more of the book is real, she hunts down the mysterious man.

While the film did get frustrating, I do have to say that the opening set-up was fascinating. A novel with no author that is so compelling that it upturns your life is a fantastic hook for the film. The first act makes the most of this as we see Gökçe try and explore this new life and work through her feelings about the book both before and after she discovers that it is based in part in the real world. This culminates in the best shot of the film, which is an afternoon setting that makes perfect use of the golden hour.

However, one of the first big stumbling blocks with the film is the fact that there is not a single likeable character in the film to latch onto. Now, films like Saltburn have shown that this is not always needed. However, here, it is hard to care about these people’s lives when they all suck. Gökçe becomes so infatuated with the book that she becomes oblivious to the world around her. Kenan fits very cleanly into the spurned-spouse role, trying everything in his power to undermine his wife. Even Metin (Alperen Duymaz) is a somewhat repugnant character.   

Then, there is the progression of the narrative, which starts strong but soon starts coming off the rails. At one point, Gökçe creates some made-up criticism for the manuscript in the film, but I could not help but feel that those words also allied to the film itself. Things started to drag, and moments of melodrama were interspersed with some awkward sex scenes. Towards the end [SPOILERS], it can’t decide if it wants to add supernatural elements or not or if it wants to play into religious concerns or not. Indeed, the whole ending itself felt like a narrative copout.

In the end, do we recommend Ashes? Unfortunately, not. While it had a strong start, it never felt like it could make the most of that opening salvo; instead, it feels like it fades out by the end. If you liked Ashes, we would recommend to you Bones and All.

By Brian MacNamara: You can follow Brian on Twitter Here, when he’s not chatting about Movies and TV, he’ll be talking about International Relations, or the Solar System.

Have you watched Ashes?, let us know what you thought in the comments below, feel free to share this review on any of the social medias and you can follow us Here. Check out all our past reviews and articles Here, and have a happy day. 

Credits – All images were created by the cast, crew, and production companies of Ashes
Directed by – Erdem Tepegöz
Written by – Erdi Işik
Music by – Marios Takoushis
Cinematography by – Hayk Kirakosyan
Edited by – Arzu Volkan
Production/Distribution Companies – Ay Yapim & Netflix
Starring – Funda Eryigit, Alperen Duymaz, Mehmet Günsür, Gökçe Eyüboglu, Yıldıray Şahinler, Seda Türkmen, Canan Atalay & Nur Sürer
Rating – Australia: MA15+;