 |
|||
 |
 |
||
 | |||
 | |||||||||||
|
|
A Buena Vista release. Written and directed by Karen Moncrieff; starring Agnes Bruckner and David Strathairn. Released to DVD on October 14, 2003. 
Writer/director Karen Moncrieff’s debut feature Blue Car provides a striking contrast in both the good and bad elements of American independent filmmaking today. On one hand, the characters are fantastically well-acted and frankly portrayed. However, Blue Car’s plot material is so focused on one set of mundane human interactions that the effect of the honesty and acting is essentially wasted. Starring the soft-spoken Agnes Bruckner as Meg, Blue Car is a cinematic journey into her undeservingly troubled senior year of high school. Abandoned by her father, Meg lives with her mother (Margaret Colin) and younger sister, Lilly (Regan Arnold). With her mother constantly out of the house at work and at night school, Meg finds that a lot of the parenting duties fall onto her shoulders. Already isolated from her peers, Meg is forced to suffer through Lily’s depression alone, with no friends or relatives to turn to. The only comfort in Meg’s life is her English teacher, Mr. Auster (David Strathairn). Having sensed a hidden talent in Meg’s poetry, Auster begins to mentor Meg in the art of writing poems, ignoring, as best he can, his building feelings of lust toward Meg. Moncrieff’s script and directorial style are decidedly organic and quite human, something that can rarely be said about movies currently in release. On the flip side of the coin though, this movie is about a combination of poetry and an innocent teenage girl who is toiling in one of life’s crueler ironies: thanks to her situation, she is forced to be both a parent and a child. Bruckner and Strathairn deliver stellar performances in their respective roles–the scene where Auster takes Meg’s virginity hair-raising and uncomfortable to the point of perfection–but, well done or not, I quickly found myself asking the question, why would I be interested in this material? Meg is not your standard Hollywood teenager ala Sixteen Candles or Can’t Hardly Wait, but Moncrieff’s pointed drive and complex investigation into Meg’s life and personal sanctuaries with little, if any, payoff just did not sit well with me. Moncrieff is obviously a talented filmmaker, I can only hope that her next project can garner a more cinematic theme.
jake lever yes, it's true: The film is called Blue Car because the lead character’s father drives a blue car. when he leaves the family. |
| |||||
