I was prepared to dislike "The Discovery" for several reasons. One was that one of the stars, albeit a part in the background was Jesse Plemins, Todd from "Breaking Bad" who still gives me the creeps, but now he is fat and bloated too. The other was Robert Redford who keeps promising to retire but also keeps showing up in movies that are not that great. Then there is Jason Segal who tries maybe too hard to be a serious actor, and sometimes even succeeds. Rooney Mara who I am not that familiar with but who is the real star of the movie plays a memorable character very well.
Of course there is also the story which is about a scientist ( Robert Redford ) who proves that there is life after death, or "something" after death. He does not know what, and is set up in a giant rambling mansion of a house with lots of equipment, his two sons and a crowd of hangers on, and rooms to try to find out.
"The Discovery" that the "soul" survives death has set off a worldwide pandemic of suicides. They have a suicide clock and millions of miserable, sad or unhappy people are taking their lives all through the movie.
It is an interesting story - a movie that doesn't really move very fast, or even very logically, but the quirky budding relationship between the Jason Segal and the Rooney Mara characters has some odd depth and an intimate human element in what seems like it would be a unrealistic movie.
People have expressed dissatisfaction with the ending, and I can understand that, but I didn't think it was so bad because after all how would you even think to tie up such a discovery all in a nice bow that people would understand and be satisfied with. So, all in all it was a though provoking movie that had a fairly strong human element to it.
I would recommend it if this is a theme that interests you.
