Expired (2007)

Director:

Cecilia Miniucchi

Writer:

Cecilia Miniucchi (writer)

Release Date:

15 August 2008 (Sweden)

Genre:

Comedy | Drama | Romance

Tagline:

Don't park your heart in the red zone.

Plot:

A turbulent and intriguing love story between a meter maid and a parking officer in the city of Los Angeles.

Plot Keywords:

Independent Film

Awards:

1 win

Cast

  (Credited cast)

Samantha Morton	...	Claire
Jason Patric	...	Jay
Teri Garr	...	Claire's Mother
Illeana Douglas
Sonia Iris Lozada	...	Jade
Jonny Mack	...	Jay's Son
Roberta Bassin	...	Waitress
Joe Camareno	...	Stephen
Joanne Baron	...	Supervisor
William Tempel	...	Amourous Man in Red Zone
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Nick Rey Angelus	...	Parking Att: RICO
Issac Bright	...	Kid Putting Money in Parking Meters
Carlease Burke	...	Supervisor
James C. Burns	...	Jeep Owner
Ryan Carlberg
Catahoula	...	Band
Denae Cavadias	...	Cashier
Pamela Clay	...	Singer in the Band
Anthony John Crane	...	Owner of the Bug
Darci Dixon	...	Waitress
Leticia Eden	...	Stephen's Wife
Adam Gropman	...	Louis
Kyle Hatch	...	Tiny Guy
Terence Bernie Hines	...	Mark
Travis Huff	...	Parking Enforcement Officer
Charles Hutchins	...	Charlie
Charles Kim	...	White Car Owner
Ron King	...	Ex-boyfriend
Elizabeth J. Martin	...	Daughter
Michele Maso	...	Honda owner
James McMann	...	Claire's Father (as James R. McMann)
David Mehl	...	Christmas Shopper
Paul Palo	...	Stewart
Kestrin Pantera	...	Pregnant Woman
Linda Phillips-Palo	...	Martha
Mills Pierre
David Pires	...	Angry Man With Groceries
Tony Rivard	...	Karaoke singer
Alexander Roos	...	Smart Aleck Boy
Timothy Starks	...	Driver 5
Hans Uder	...	Driver #5
Rachel Wittman	...	Amber
Del Zamora	...	Photographer

Runtime:

107 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

Sweden:11 | Finland:K-15 | New Zealand:R16

Filming Locations:

Los Angeles, California, USA

Company:

Aga Films

Movie Connections:

References "Wheel of Fortune" (1975/I)

This is a very intense, powerful and darkly funny film.

The movie Expired is really unlike most of the feature films you'll see these days. It has an intensity, a committed vision that grabs you and holds you in its grips for the entire hour and a half or so. Of films in recent years that share this quality, I can think of Todd Solondz' "Happiness".

Expired is the story of two L.A. parking officers, or "meter maids", one female and one male, who meet on the job and have an increasingly dysfunctional, mercurial relationship. Samantha Morton plays it extremely sweet, wide-eyed and gentle as Claire, a meter maid who lives with her stroke-incapacitated, essentially mute mother and hates having to ruin peoples' days with tickets. Jason Patric is Jay, a taut, seething, bull-shouldered ball of defensive machismo in a blue uniform with a ticket-gun and a hilarious dark mustache. He likes slapping parking tickets on folks the way some LA cops like cracking heads.

The first two thirds or so of the film especially are darkly comedic, and the purposefully stylized elements- lighting, dialogue, supporting actors, visual action, set design, musical score- create a very sharp, bittersweet, somewhat tragic kind of comedy, like the best of the Coen Brothers films. This isn't broad American multiplex comedy, this is comedy that comes from true pathos, sadness and the small calamities of life. While Morton's face shows sensitivity and vulnerability- two of her big strengths- Patric's Jay character is fantastic because he offsets the angry disciplinarian guy with loose moments of real charm and also sarcastic, almost whimsical humor.

The film progresses with a few traditional "plot points" that serve to accelerate the conflicts and create moments of challenge and decision for the characters, but really the film is also greatly a close-up examination of the attempted close relationship of two equally extreme opposites- the "naive, yearning do-gooder" and the "previously injured, prickly, defensive bully." At its core it's just a film about human beings- what they have, what they want and need, and the different places they're coming from emotionally.

Visually, the film was shot in a crisp, almost beautiful way, at once seeming straightforwardly no-nonsense and yet heavily atmospheric. A lot of the production design strongly complements the film- from the richly hued, antique-laden apartment Claire and her Mom live in to the various LA coffee shops and streetscapes. The musical scoring is also highly evocative and appropriate- with the best of it reminding me of great melodic work Michael Penn and Jon Brion did in P.T. Anderson's film 'Hard Eight'.

Ileana Douglas is perfect as Claire's decent-hearted, energetic busybody neighbor and Teri Garr is rock solid as the mute, wheelchair-bound Mom but hilarious and deliciously campy in a second role as the Mom's crazy sister in Pomona! With its strong vision and execution, 'Expired' should certainly put writer/director Cecilia Miniucchi on the Hollywood map.