Crush

The theme of a malevolent stranger insinuating herself into a family, seducing everyone in it, and wreaking havoc before getting her final comeuppance is an old tale. But it is told in this movie in a fresh and engaging way. Part of the appeal is the New Zealand landscape, and the cinematography dwells on its most unusual, dream-like aspects. Marcia Gay Harden is absolutely spot-on as the seductress. Caitlin Bossley is also very appealing as the daughter. William Zappa is rather frumpy, however, as the famous author. In an interesting twist, the direct victim of Harden's malevolence is played by Donogh Rees as a character which is just as malevolent.

If you're a person who likes movies that keep you guess this one certainly will until the very shocking and superb ending. I haven't seen a movie that ended so powerfully since Vertigo and I would mark this Director's incredible style and writing talents as quite good as recognized by her commendation at the Cannes Film Festival and her subsequent success in more mainstream cinema. The unique plot of the film starts of a little slowly but brings the viewer into communion with its characters through both distinct sexuality and the angst-ridden characters and how they deal with the early car accident and it's subsequent repercussions. Marcia Gay Harden puts in a riveting performance in this not to be missed film.

Skip Gladiator . . . uh-hem, I mean troy and rent this one.

Cristina and Lane are on a car trip through New Zealand, driving to meet a famous author with whom Cristina has scheduled an interview. Their interactions suggest that they have not seen each other in a long time and that there is some emotional disconnection. They get in a horrible car accident. Cristina is severely injured, but Lane (Marcia Gay Harden) is only mentally shaken by the accident. She stumbles away from the scene, and the next time we see her is at the home of the author. She assumes Cristina's identity and quickly forms an intimate bond with the author's daughter, Angela. Soon, she finds that Cristina survived the accident and is in the hospital. She comes clean about her identity and succeeds in seducing the author, and decides to stay awhile. But Angela is a bit jealous that she has lost her new friend (and crush?) to her father, and starts going to visit Cristina as she recovers in the hospital and a warped little triangle forms.

This New Zealand film is a fantastic piece of neo-noir! It is gorgeously filmed to the point where it is impossible to take your eyes off the screen. Marcia Gay Harden is an extremely stylish and sexy femme fatale and gives a brilliant understated performance. Lane is one of the most compelling and perplexing antiheroes I've seen. Also noteworthy are Caitlin Bossley as Angela, the author's coming-of-age daughter, and Donogh Rees as Cristina, the recovering accident victim. These women all give award-worthy performances. The first twenty minutes or so after the accident are very confusing and make little sense (even after the end of the movie!) and the characters' motives are very confusing. But if you stick with the movie you will find the story captivating and very emotionally intense. It is really the story of a bizarre triangle formed between three women. First, we see it through the jumbled-yet-together perspective of Lane, then through the bitter and jealous perspective of Angela, and finally through the innocent but spiteful eyes of the wheelchair-bound Cristina.

The newly released DVD features a perfect transfer and contains a commentary by Maclean and Harden, as well as the horror short "Kitchen Sink." Recommended to fans of "Mulholland Dr." and "All Over Me." My Rating: 8/10.

Boiling mud pools, a deranged car accident victim, a precocious teenager, and a wild-woman who constantly applies blood-red lipstick. With some excellent performances from three female leads, Crush should be a runaway success. Sadly, it veers off the highway and never achieves its full potential, even though it contains enough specimens of curious merit that will be bottled and studied by ardent celluloid pathologists.

Lane (Marcia Gay Harden) is visiting New Zealand with her friend Christina to interview an award-winning novelist when their car comes off the road. Lane crawls out, but Christina needs a lengthy stay in intensive care and the make-up department before venturing out and confronting her pal who was driving. Lane, meanwhile, bonds with Angela, the author's 15yr old daughter, before seducing the old man himself and convincing us she's not gay. Naturally, a few interpersonal tensions are in order and, if you can sit through nearly two hours of badly scripted, poorly edited, unbelievable waffle, you will eventually find out who's really got it in for whom. On the way, you can enjoy some of the largely irrelevant natural attractions of New Zealand - particularly Rotorua - at least if you can bear to miss the superior production values of the average tourist video.

Among the special features on the DVD are a director's commentary (shared with Marcia Gay Harden) and an interview with the director Alison Maclean. These are essential viewing, as they enable you to see all the great things they had in mind which unfortunately don't come out in the film.

Rotorua is a smallish city on New Zealand's North Island and a major tourist attraction. It is surrounded by volcanoes, lakes, parks, and the geothermal wonderland of geysers and boiling mud pools that Kiwis love so much - and is also a showcase for Maori cultural activities. This makes it an obvious attraction for filmmakers, except that no-one apparently mentioned to them that some relevance to the story might have been a help. The opening credits linger on the bubbling mud pools, the camera loiters on the hot springs, but the script struggles to fit them into the plot. Lane is an interesting character, a sexually ambiguous intruder that cares nothing about what others think, but although well played she appears to have fallen out of a different script - maybe an old film noir or a supercharged femme fatale; and the interaction between her and the other players is so lacking in chemistry as to be non-existent. Better handled, she would truly be a force that drains the others, but I remained unconvinced that they would really be drawn to her so easily and found I had to admire the intention more than the result.

"What do you do for entertainment around her?" asks Lane, in a tone that reminded me of a wild west anti-hero. If this is all that is on offer, the answer probably won't be 'watching a movie.'

I only saw the last half of this New Zealand film on Sundance cable this evening.

Of course I wouldn't normally comment after an incomplete viewing, much less only half. I'm only doing so because so far there are no comments on IMDb, and this one deserves them. But given my partial viewing, I won't venture any more comment than this:

It's a very well filmed, intense psychological drama among four women and one man. It definitely brings a fresh perspective. It's well acted, and riveting, for those interested in intelligent, as opposed to least common denominator, dramas.

I will definitely be viewing the whole thing.