|
107 MINUTES | KENDALL SQUARE + WEST NEWTON Ira Sachs’s slight but well-acted film was a hit at Sundance, where unhappy family dramas score high; its reception away from the festival’s rarefied air remains to be seen. Russian émigrée Laura (striking Russian actress Dina Korzun) is in an unhappy relationship with Memphis music mogul Alan (Rip Torn); when Alan’s estranged son, Michael (Darren Burrows of TV’s Northern Exposure) comes home with problems of his own, Laura finds an outlet. Burrows gives Michael an understated grace, and Korzun makes alienation and loneliness look pretty fetching, but their scenes together don’t add up to much. And though Sachs creates a sense of the rhythm of everyday life, with lots of scenes in cars and of people just sitting around, they don’t generate much dramatic tension. All the shades of blue turn into gray.
BY BROOKE HOLGERSON
|
