News

A strong central performance by Famke Janssen and an interesting feminist twist on a familiar genre are the distinguishing traits of "Turn the River". The directorial and screenwriting debut of actor Chris Eigeman, this low-budget film about a female pool hustler has an interesting grittiness that makes up for its narrative cliches.

Janssen plays Kailey, who plies her trade at an upstate New York pool hall run by her aging mentor (Rip Torn). The mother of an 11-year-old son (Jaymie Dornan) who is now living with his alcoholic father (Matt Ross) and his new wife (Marin Hinkle), Kailey finds herself in desperate need of $50,000 in order to purchase the fake passports necessary to spirit him away to Canada.

Much of the film's running time is spent depicting Kailey's relationship with her sensitive son, with Janssen conveying both the toughness necessary for her dangerous trade -- at one point she gets beaten up by one of her intended marks -- and the tenderness of a loving mother wracked by guilt.

Eigeman skillfully depicts the seedy milieu of his Kailey's profession and displays a keen facility for drawing pungent performances from his actors. Besides Janssen's excellent work, there are also memorable if brief supporting turns by Torn, whom the film could have used more of; Terry Kinney, as a sleazy counterfeiter; and Lois Smith, as Kailey's domineering ex-mother-in-law.

By Stephen Saito

One of Chris Eigeman's favorite performances in his directorial debut, "Turn the River," comes from an actor who has all of three lines and plays a pimply faced donut shop employee who tells his potential customers that he already drank the coffee. It's the kind of droll one-liner that one could easily imagine rolling off Eigeman's tongue during his heyday as the quick-witted star of Noah Baumbach's "Kicking and Screaming" and Whit Stillman's trilogy of "Metropolitan," "Barcelona" and "The Last Days of Disco." But "Turn the River" isn't the intellectual yukfest one might expect from an actor with a reputation for snark and smarts, but rather the heartfelt character study of Kailey (Famke Janssen), a mother forced to give up her son Gulley (Jaymie Dornan), who attempts to raise enough money through hustling at pool and poker to steal him away from his father.

By Neil Pedley

This week sees the return of the Wachowski brothers, Tarsem Singh ("The Cell") and Henry Bean ("The Believer") to the big screen, not to mention new films from documentarians Nick Broomfield ("Tupac and Biggie") and Doug Pray ("Scratch"). On the other hand, after running around Tribeca, we still need to catch up on last week's releases.

"The Babysitters"

The idea of the spunky teenage boy succumbing to the allure of an experienced older woman is the kind of Hollywood golden goose that launches major careers (think Dustin Hoffman). But when the roles are reversed, the result is the directorial debut of David Ross that sees an entrepreneurial high schooler (Katherine Waterston, daughter of Sam) and her friends turn their babysitting ring into a call girl service, realizing there are alternative ways to pay for college besides waiting tables. It stars when one local dad (John Leguizamo) goes...