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WINTER PASSING A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 2006 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): * 1/2
Sometimes an actress possesses such a natural luminescence that she can light up even the most miserable pictures. Zooey Deschanel, best seen in such good movies as ELF, is one such actress. In WINTER PASSING, a film which feels like it takes forever to pass, Deschanel manages to give quite a compelling performance in a film that never deserves her fine work. As written and directed clumsily by Adam Rapp, the movie gives the audience no reason to care about it. That Deschanel creates an interesting character says everything about her acting ability and nothing about the quality of the script with which she has to work.
As Reese Holdin, Deschanel plays a woman cursed with having a famous father. A writer who hasn't had anything published in two decades, her AWOL dad Don is played bizarrely by Ed Harris. This literary legend is a JD Salinger-like hermit. The only manuscript he has turned in lately was so full of spelling and grammatical errors that his publisher figures that Don is trying to be the "voice of the illiterate."
After Lori Lankey (Amy Madigan) offers Reese a hundred thousand dollars for the letters from Reese's dead mother to Don, Reese finds herself spending more time with her dad than she'd like. Also on the premises is a wacky Will Ferrell, playing a protective guy named Corbit. When a fan comes by Don's house to see him, Corbit brags of knowing "ka-ra-tay" and tears up the guy's expensive camera.
My favorite part of this very unlikable film comes early on in an acting audition. Reese, although she isn't a singer, is asked to sing something. In Deschanel's signature nasal voice, she warbles "My Bonnie Lies Over The Ocean." It's pretty awful, but listening to it is consistently fascinating, something that could not be said of any other performance in the film other than Deschanel's.
WINTER PASSING runs a long 1:38. It is rated R for "language, some drug use and sexuality" and would be acceptable for teenagers.
The film is playing in nationwide release now in the United States. In the Silicon Valley, it is showing at the Camera Cinemas.
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