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It makes a lot of sense that Lynne Stopkewich worked as a production designer on fellow Canadian David Cronenberg's Crash before launching her own career as a filmmaker. Stopkewich's first two offerings, though not widely seen or discussed in the US, are a pair of chilling, detached sexual dramas that seem hell-bent on making the audience grimace, cover their eyes, or just plain bolt out of the theatre as the films unspool in what feels like slow motion.
In other words, Suspicious River might not be the best first-date flick out there. River re-teams the writer/director with Molly Parker, who starred in Stopkewich's creepy debut festival hit Kissed. In that film, Parker knocked my socks off as a funeral home attendant who liked to get intimate with her customers (the cold, stiff ones), which is pretty interesting since, in River, the tables are completely turned. Parker has gone from grinding corpses to playing dead while she's being humped.
Parker, who is probably best known outside Canada and the festival circuit as the rabbi on Six Feet Under, plays Leila Murray, the exceedingly bored clerk at a fleabag motel in gloomy Suspicious River, Washington (which, one would imagine, isn't too far from Twin Peaks). Leila is married, but it's obvious her husband excites her about as much as her job does. She's in one of those deep ruts where only something singularly amazing might manage to save her. Since Suspicious River isn't exactly a hotbed of singularly amazing activity, Leila decides to throw a $60 blowjob into her usual turndown service.
Before long, Leila's reputation spreads quicker than her legs (If you were a guy, by the way, wouldn't you keep quiet about this, instead of blabbing and driving up the rates? It's called supply and demand, people!) and she's making money lips-over-fist. Instead of treating herself to extravagant treats, Leila squirrels the money away for heaven knows what. We never know why. We never know why because even Leila doesn't know.
Meanwhile, Leila starts to fall for one of her abusive johns (Callum Keith Rennie) and strikes up a friendship with a local girl (Mary Kate Welsh) she meets while eating her lunch down by the smelly river. The two women, who obviously have a lot more in common than either care to admit or comprehend, quietly watch the wholesome white swans frolic, as Leila dreads the day they'll take off for the winter...just like Tony Soprano.
It's pretty obvious River, which was adapted from Laura Kasischke's novel, is going someplace very dark and very bad - all you can do is sit back and hope you can stomach it. I'm not sure it's the kind of film you're supposed to like or enjoy, but then again, did anyone really enjoy Schindler's List, or Gods and Generals? At least River has the common courtesy to not crack 100 minutes, in addition to offering another uniquely dazzling performance from Parker, in another unnerving tale from Stopkewich.
1:38 - Not Rated
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