Half Formed Not Quite Posts Of Away From Her and Bug (2007)
To ensure the non-horror enthuasist’s continued loyality to BC, I have, of course, been watching stuff that doesn’t feature monsters or ghosts, or ghastlies of the soul. I’m not doing real reviews (or posts, the word review seems a little delusional for what I do here) of either film yet (or ever) but a few thoughts should be offered.
Bug is an intense little nitty gritty chamber play from Exorcist/French Connection director William Friedkin, and it features a rousing return to form from Ashley Judd. She isn’t playing a smooth cat avenger here, she’s fleshy and surprisingly vulnerable, and her voice cracks and betrays her at the least opportune times. She’s a drunk mourning the loss of a child, and she’s perfectly susceptible to the insanity that Peter (Michael Shannon) is selling.
Your enjoyment of the film will depend largely on whether or not you buy how quickly Judd’s Agnes succumbs to paranoia and insanity. I didn’t buy it, but I respected the typical to Friedkin relentlessness of the film, and Judd’s performance. Michael Shannon looks a little like Anthony Michael Hall at his most hungover, but his presence and surprisingly soft voice throws you off balance, you get why Judd might go for this guy. The ending is abrupt, unforgiving and the perfect capper for a very over the top last third. The film has been referred to as a thriller or a horror story, but its really a perverse romance.
Away From Her is another perverse romance, and its one of the most disciplined, pared to the bone debuts from a young director that I can remember seeing. The film has been directed by actress Sarah Polley (Go, Dawn of the Dead 2004), and its imbued through and through with the thoughtful refusal to sentimentalize that characterizes her best work. Ron Howard, Penny Marshall and all the other people who traffic in tear jerker up lift should be forced to watch what this young lady has done here.
It’s no surprise that Julie Christie is luminous and haunting (flashbacks to her as a young woman hammer home the effect, with little screen time, that Polley is going for) but Gordon Pinsent, whom I’ve never heard of, is heartbreaking here as a husband finding himself odd man out when his wife Christie, suffering from Alzheimers, forgets him and falls in love with another patient at the nursing home.
Pinsent was unfaithful many years before, and he can’t help but think that a certain black joke cosmic justice is coming about. This element steers the picture from schmaltz, though Polley’s approach is so dry and commanding that I imagine it would have been fine either way. I will never think of Neil Young’s “Harvest Moon” the same way again. See this one.
February 20th, 2008 at 10:50 am
I loved Away From Her, Julie Christie was magical.
February 20th, 2008 at 11:19 am
I agree Nick. The film really is a gift. Can’t wait to see where Polley goes from here.