"Scalene" is a decent, crafty thriller, and I applaud its ambition to give its audience something psychologically complex to chew on. But it's also a case of a director not being up to the challenge he poses himself, and the result is a film that frustrates its audience, not because of its intentional ambiguity, but because it's at times downright confusing.
Margo Martindale plays a woman taking care of her mentally handicapped son. She enlists the help of a college student as a part-time caregiver. When the student begins to suspect that the son is being abused by the mother, she takes matters into her own hands and does something appalling in an attempt to protect him from further harm. The gimmick of the story is that it's told through three different perspectives -- the mother, the son and the caregiver -- each perspective in turn using a different chronology. The mother's story is told to us backwards, the caregiver's linearly, and the son's in a mixed up stew that is supposed to mirror his mental processes. The director has been on these message boards (or at least someone claiming to be the director) defending his film against charges that it's intentionally ambiguous. According to him, it's not ambiguous at all, and he points to the middle section of the movie, the part told through the son's point of view, as containing the key that makes the rest of the movie fall into place. After watching the film once and being a bit befuddled, I re-watched that middle section, and it does in fact bring some clarity to the film. But a better director could have helped his audience understand things on one viewing without sacrificing any of his artistic integrity. When re-watching a film gives you a greater appreciation for it, that's the sign of a well-made movie. When re-watching it simply clarifies some points that were too obscure to understand the first time through, that's poor story telling.
But "Scalene" does have a lot to recommend it, and it is thought provoking in its own modest way.
Grade: B+
