MORVERN CALLAR A film review by Steve Rhodes Copyright 2003 Steve Rhodes RATING (0 TO ****): * 1/2
As MORVERN CALLAR begins, it appears that it may be a silent picture, and it almost is, since the characters rarely talk and when they do, their speech is intentionally low and almost unintelligible. By director Lynne Ramsay, the film manages to be slightly better than her almost unwatchable last film, RATCATCHER, although I'd be hard-pressed to say why.
If you are going to make an almost dialog-free film -- it is also relatively plot-free -- the obvious casting choice for the lead is Samantha Morton, who played the precog Agatha in MINORITY REPORT, since she has made a career of playing characters who say next to nothing. Although she has been terrific in her other movies, even Morton can't save MORVERN CALLAR, a film that only a film critic would love.
The setup for the story is that a woman with the unusual name of Morvern Callar (Morton) wakes up next to her dead boyfriend, who has committed suicide. Not upset with the demise of her loved one, Morvern goes about her life barely noticing the decaying corpse in the middle of the room. She goes off to a party, where she drinks and does drugs with her girlfriend, Lanna (Kathleen McDermott). Both of them are amoral and immature adults who haven't a clue.
Perhaps because the stench finally gets to her, Morvern eventually chops up her boyfriend's body and disposes of it in the woods. After that, she and Lanna use the dead man's money to go abroad on holiday, where they continue to live their meaningless existence. It is there that the movie's only (unintentionally) funny line occurs. A severely depressed young man asks Morvern, of all people, to stay awhile in his hotel room and talk to him. Now that's a laugh.
I suspect that you'll be as bored watching MORVERN CALLAR as the characters are in it. If you go, pack your knitting needles. You're going to need something to kill the time.
MORVERN CALLAR runs a very long 1:37. It is not rated but would be an R for nudity, drugs, sex, violence and language and would be acceptable for high school seniors and older.
The film is playing in limited release now in the United States. In the Silicon Valley, it is showing at the Camera Cinemas.
Web: http://www.InternetReviews.com Email: Steve.Rhodes@InternetReviews.com
Want free reviews and weekly movie and video recommendations via Email? Just send me a letter with the word "subscribe" in the subject line.
========== X-RAMR-ID: 33930 X-Language: en X-RT-ReviewID: 835674 X-RT-TitleID: 1118943 X-RT-SourceID: 703 X-RT-AuthorID: 1271 X-RT-RatingText: 1.5/4
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews