Levitation

Sometimes a simple coming-of-age tale is enough -- you don't need to throw in the dead stepfather, celestial hallucinations, imaginary boyfriends, or powers of levitation. Acey (Sarah Paulson, whose sensitivity gives the role some credibility) is an orphan who gets knocked up by an anonymous punk and decides to leave her drunken, soon-to-be-deceased dad on a quest to find out who she really is. Along the way she encounters various strangers, some real and others fantasized, and spends a lot of time pondering montages of soil, rainwater, the sun, the moon, and other pathetic fallacies. Chief among her encounters is Downbeat (a solid Ernie Hudson), a blues DJ with a troubled past of his own who helps Acey track down her natural mother (Ann Magnuson). Although well acted and beautifully photographed, Levitation drifts out of focus through too much mystification and melodrama, and it's made that more wispy by its humorlessness. It would have more weight if it came down to earth. Screens at the Copley Place Thursday at 5:40, 7:40, and 9:40 p.m. and Friday at 11 a.m. and 1 and 3 p.m.

-- Peter Keough

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