Amy Adams in "Sunshine Cleaning"
(Credit: Sundance)
But reaction to the film's first public screening last weekend was decidedly mixed, and the film still hasn't sold to a distributor. (There's no question that it will, it's just not the sort of thing that inspires a bidding war and an instant deal.)
It may simply have been a case of over-inflated expectations, but now that I've finally caught up with the movie (it's still a tough ticket to score) it's clear that the stars are great but the story is minor.
Adams and Blunt both shine as bright as usual as sisters who enter into a crime-scene clean-up business. But despite the presence of talented actors like Alan Arkin and Steve Zahn, none of the supporting characters really pop. And the movie's family relationships are too familiar to really make an impact. It's not a bad film, but it's not the festival standout that I was anticipating.
Expectations are a non-issue when you don't really know what you're walking in to. I had no idea I'd see two of the festival's most extreme films back-to-back. Both "Donkey Punch" and "Death in Love" are not for the squeamish and would surely receive NC-17 ratings if they can even find distributors bold enough to release them.
British thriller "Donkey Punch" is the more marketable of the two, as it gathers seven good looking young adults on a yacht off the coast of Spain for an evening of debauchery that turns deadly.
Not a traditional horror film, it's a thriller where an accidental death sets off a chain reaction of paranoia, self-defense and a struggle for survival split along gender lines. Complete with heavy doses of sex and violence this is not a movie for anyone who can't stand seeing characters make bad moral choices. Those who can are in for a wild ride.
"Death in Love" wastes no time in announcing its extreme mixture of sex and violence, it's all right there in an opening sequence that intercuts the main character's (Josh Lucas) various sexual encounters with a graphic WWII-era concentration camp autopsy.
The film works out complex themes about how the horrors of the past inflict wounds that will never heal and it features excellent performances from Lucas, Lukas Haas as his obsessive compulsive brother and Adam Brody as Lucas' charming new co-worker at a scam modeling agency. Jacqueline Bisset has one of the trickiest roles as the mother to Lucas and Haas, who had a torrid love affair with a Nazi surgeon when she was a concentration camp prisoner.
Writer-director Boaz Yakin seems intent on getting as far away from his glossy Hollywood work ("Remember the Titans," "Uptown Girls") as possible. In the end he'll repulse more viewers than he'll captivate.
Two films in the dramatic competition section that have a real shot at winning festival prizes this weekend are "American Son" and "Ballast."
Both are low-key dramas, but "American Son" is the one with a shot at connecting with audiences as it tells the affecting story of a young Marine (Nick Cannon) on a four-day leave from Iraq. He falls in love with a cute girl (Melonie Diaz) he meets on a bus, but can't bring himself to tell her that he's leaving soon.
The film never over-sells its political or sentimental elements and winds up all the more powerful as a result.
"Ballast" will have a harder time finding an audience outside of the festival realm, although it's already developing into a critical favorite. It takes a European art film approach to the narrative of a young boy in the Mississippi Delta who starts acting out when his father dies. The boy's uncle and mother struggle to keep him in line. Debut filmmaker Lance Hammer buries a thin narrative under precious art-house techniques that only occasionally work, but Tarra Riggs' strong performance as the mother could earn her an acting prize here and should increase her previously non-existent profile on the indie scene.
Add a comment