User reviews

Winter Passing introduces a few great characters inside of an interesting family reconciliation plot, but fails to deliver with the results. Deschanel does a great job anchoring the film's emotional context as the very multidimensional, seemingly jaded Reese and the always dependable Ed Harris does more with one eye then many actors can emote during an impassioned speech. Will Ferrell however, despite being the go-to comedic relief in a very somber film, simply cannot disappear outside of himself enough as an actor to ever truly play a character other then his endless Saturday night live variations, and to me his awareness almost condescends the film's emotional impact. Nevertheless, the film will have you engaged in the offbeat family situation we are thrust into, only to have it become tied up way too neatly and quickly at the end. This lack of a thought out finale will make the emotional attachments made throughout the film with the main characters not as hard hitting as the movie perhaps intended, but still delivers a pretty solid, if a little unfulfilled, drama.

Zooey Deschanel is quite easily the most interesting thing about this movie. It is slowly paced. It is an examination of one woman's journey through an emotional roadblock. There are many aspects of this film that are out of place and a bit frivolous, all indications of a young or new filmmaker. However, I think it deserves more credit that the above description.

This film surprised me with its various nuances, many of which are the difference between a love affair with New York City and the hate that develops when it's inhabitant realizes just how wonderful (and horrible) home can be. In addition to that, it has been some time since a film was able to be charming without being too forced, something I think they do not ultimately achieve, but it is not without merit.

As mentioned above, it is worth the price of admission to watch Zooey Deschanel work her way from solipsistic bitch to humbled and hurt woman. She is raw, honest, fun, and a bit of a fu*k up. Ed Harris brings her character a bit more alive, but he himself it not at his best. As an actor he does a fine job, though I have a feeling he was left out to dry a bit by the young director. Will Ferrel almost makes his way through without being funny, though he is not removed enough from his Saturday Night Live characters to really pull through. The audience I was with seemed to love him. I nearly didn't see the movie because he was in it.

When it comes down to it this film is a first-time film director used to working in a theater medium. The writing is strong, the story interesting and for all it's pit-falls and loop-holes, it still manages to make an emotional impact. Give it a second chance.

Winter Passing is remarkable for several reasons. The performances of Zooey Deschanel and Ed Harris are resonant and moving. The look and the music of the film are quite lovely and evoke a hurt, longing that works well with the theme of the film. And finally, the story itself is remarkable for anyone who's familiar with the life and enigma of the writer J.D. Salinger. For anyone who has read his daughter, Margaret Salinger's wonderful memoir, "Dream Catcher," the film will play like a thinly veiled reference to her life with the highly lauded and tragically flawed father who is a legend and inspiration to generations and a horror as a father.

This would have made a great short film, and I don't mean that as an insult.

The idea of the plot is an interesting one, but didn't seem to hold my attention for the whole film, although the festival audience didn't seem to mind that much.

Adam Rapp is off to a good start as a director, it seems he hasn't done much, but I look forward to his next film. His work with the actors was marvelous, and the camera placement wonderful too. It's just that the story seemed a little, well, difficult to swallow. There's no missing the Salinger connection, and it seems as if every cliché about his life is crammed in here.

And as much as I love Will Farrell, his genius for comedy was somewhat of a distraction- it's just hard to believe him in this role. A solid actor without a public persona would have helped me stay in the story.

But overall, an enjoyable ride.

What a nice film! The premise is simple: Actress Reese Holden (played by Zooey Deschanel) is offered a lot of money if she can get hold of letters written to and by her late mother and father, novelist Don Holdin (played be Ed Harris). Reese hasn't seen her father for a long time; she hadn't gone to her mother's funeral. Ed Harris, performing with sensitivity and rigour (as in Pollock and The Hours)gives a fine performance as the socially maladaptive, reclusive "genius" counterpointed by s dazed, bewildered, but protective Corbit (Will Ferrell, who gives a fine performance. I've just seen him in The Producers, and physically/vocally he is *completely* different. It's a good role.) Like Pieces of April, the film works with silences, visual cues, and verbal cues intertwined. It is a film which is worth concentrating in - and Zooey Deschanel's performance as Reese Holdin is excellent. She doesn't go over the top, rather it is through a subdued range that she succeeds in winning over the audience. Don't miss this film, or let it pass you by.

One of the challenges Winter Passing faces is getting the audience to empathize with characters enough to ride the film's emotional ups-and-downs. Director Adam Rapp took a risk by placing so many of the events which define each character outside of the story, instead conveying these details through conversations between characters (i.e. "Who's pills are these?" or "Who is Corbit and why does he live here?").

The potential reward of this "Tell-Don't-Show" approach is that the director can add dimension to the characters by providing a greater quantity of personal history and details. The risk, however, is that the audience won't invest enough emotionally in the characters to really care about what happens to them.

The acting was quite good; I'm always glad to see Will Ferrell push beyond his slapstick beginnings, and he and Zooey Deschanel have very believable chemistry. But by relying so heavily on dialogue and description, the film subverts the medium, and made it hard for me to identify with any of the four main characters.

Reese Holden (Zooey Deschanel) is a struggling NY actress with many personal problems. She's offered $100k by Lori Lansky to get her reclusive writer father (Ed Harris)'s love letters with her mother. Her mother had recently died but she didn't go to her funeral. She goes home to find her father living with his former student Shelly (Amelia Warner) and weird musician Corbit (Will Ferrell). Her father is withdrawn and she's haunted by her troubled childhood.

Writer/director Adam Rapp is doing a somewhat mixed indie. Zooey Deschanel is losing her quirkiness for a real sad character. I wish she had more substantial conversations with Ed Harris but he ends up catatonic in most of the movie. Then there is Will Ferrell who seems intent to be quirky and it's ill-fitting. It's interesting to see Zooey take a slight turn and this indie has a few interesting moments.

This is from the Parents Guide:

"Reece drowns her own pet kitten by zipping it up in a bag and dropping it into the bay. The scene is disturbing even if little attention is given to it (filmed from a distance to music)."

Thank you to the person who posted this. You saved me from a heartbreaking scene.

Greetings again from the darkness. When writers attempt to tackle too many themes in one story, usually none are complete. Writer and Director Adam Rapp (brother Anthony is of "Rent" fame and has a brief cameo in this one) is extremely ambitious as he explores parenthood, artistic genius, friendship, community, guilt and the desire to feel love and pain. Surprisingly Rapp is mostly successful in pulling off a most complex script.

Ed Harris stars as a reclusive writer with more than a nod to J.D. Salinger (his last name is Holden ... get it?). In poor health and being taken care of by a former student (Amelia Warner) and a broken down rhythm guitarist (Will Ferrell), Harris is taken aback when his long lost daughter (Zooey Deschanel) shows up one day. Drastically altering the dynamics of this bizarre little community, Deschanel literally steals the film. She spills her soul on screen and we somehow understand her habit of slamming her hand in a drawer just to feel something. She is a pitiful person seeking redemption and her place in life.

Harris and Warner are fine in their roles, but Ferrell is a real distraction. As a viewer, we don't see the character. We see Will Ferrell on screen ... acting goofy and clumsily mumbling his lines. His open mike night could easily have been an SNL skit. This movie would have been much better with a straight forward actor in this role. That said, I still have faith Ferrell will succeed as a dramatic actor. If Robin Williams could make the transition, surely Elf can.

If you might enjoy multi-layered story telling, a tremendous performance by Zooey and can look past Will Ferrell, this movie has a lot to offer.

Though the cover for the DVD of WINTER PASSING (a photo of the four main characters crowded into a box) may make many potential viewers pass over this little film, thinking that it must be silly slapstick, this is a fine film written and directed with finesse and style by Adam Rapp, a new face whose talents have been somewhat limited to working on episodes of the TV series 'The L Word'. Rapp gives notice of a fine writer and an equally fine director in this barely noticed little touching movie.

Reese Holdin (Zooey Deschanel) lives in New York, an actress relegated to small parts in off Broadway theater while spending her days as a bartender hooked on alcohol, drugs and casual sex. Her life seems dead-ended: she has become anesthetized by her manner of living. An agent (Amy Madigan) approaches her with an offer to pay her for the letters between her parents, both once famous authors. Her mother has just died, and Reese didn't attend her funeral, so distant does she feel is her relationship to her past. But the spark of money moves her to ride a bus back to her Michigan home to salvage the letters to sell for publication.

Arriving home she is greeted by the weird Corbit (Will Ferrell), a Christian electric guitar player and composer who ears black eyeliner etc, but does care for Reese's severely alcoholic father - the once famous writer Don Holdin (Ed Harris) who hasn't written a novel in years and lives in the garage of his home under the care of Corbit and an ex-student Shelley (Amelia Warner), a bright very young girl with demons of her own. Reese works at reconnecting with her father, struggles with her resentment for the 'caregivers', and ultimately finds the letters she came for, only to make discoveries about her dysfunctional family and her father's status that alters her view of his value as her parent.

The movie is rather stagy and most of the action is unspoken, and while that technique of telling this particular story seems exactly right to this viewer, there are some who will feel frustrated at the rather static pace of the film. Zooey Deschanel once again proves that she is one of our finest actresses on the screen and hopefully this role will bring her to the attention of casting agents and result in our seeing more of this gifted actress in the future. Ed Harris is superb as the wasted, quietly grieving has-been author, keeping his performance understated and in doing so creating a character that is indelible in our minds long after the movie is over. Amelia Warner is also a fine little actress and even galumphing Will Ferrell brings more than his usual tiring comedic talents to this touching role. In all this is a movie that deserves wide attention. There is more to quietly hear and understand about interpersonal relationships than we would expect from the cover! Grady Harp

This is a "small subject" (a few inter-personal relationships), "mood" (mostly dark) film. It's set in New York City, and somewhere in the state of Michigan; current (2005 +/-) period.

I found it mildly engaging, but not memorable; well-done, but not exceptional. I did not go into the film with much bias for or against the cast and director, and came away the same.

I never quite got to the point of really caring about any of the characters -- I couldn't identify with nor "like'" the people portrayed, nor even find them very interesting. The acting was fairly good, but the roles were too shallowly developed, and most of the characters were overly much on the edge. The Corbit character was so inexplicably odd (there was more explanation for the other odd characters), that he puzzled and then alienated me.

The story-line was thin, but mostly credible.

Overall, there wasn't enough ancillary presentation (originality, complexity / challenge, intrigue, larger- statement, photogenics, music, action, or just plain "charm") to to raise the quality of the viewing experience to an "attractive" level.

I should also add that I am not a fan of the genre, and the graphic on the cover (on the video-store shelf) somehow misled me to think that there would be some lightness / humor within.

I rate the film a 6, out of 10.

Starts off dull, and ends that way, too. In between, not a heckuva lot happens either.

Girl has been estranged from her writer father for years, and sees a chance to make money off him, pays him an awkward visit, which last 2/3 of movie, and then, well, like I said, not much happens.

Actually, movie had some funny parts, NEITHER involving the main characters, but involved her father's living arrangements. Now THAT was rather humorous, I found.

Lead character girl, while not a sleazebag, was very unlikable, and not the type of person you'd root for, nor even care if her part ended twenty minutes after movie started.

Waste of time, and would NEVER see it again.

Good, but could have been great. Solid plot, well directed. Heavy on emotion, relationships and character-based drama. Does overdo the kookiness though. Plus, it leaves a lot of things unresolved, though maybe that's the point.

Zooey Deschanel is solid in the lead role. Good to see her in an edgy role for once. She usually plays sweet innocent characters (not that I am complaining though - I loved her in 500 Days of Summer). Here she is a selfish, chain-smoking, cocaine-snorting, foul-mouthed bitch.

Ed Harris is superb in the role of the father, though this is to be expected. (He seems to revel in portraying sick/depressed/emotionally scarred characters). Interesting to see Will Ferrell in a dramatic role, and he does OK in it.

This is one of the worst movies I have ever seen, despite touting a cast that I adore. Painfully aware of itself and desperate to fit the "indie" mold, this film is the pits. You know those girls in college that brood and "secretly" cut themselves but then go out in tank tops because they want you to know how deep they are? That's basically the same thing this movie is trying to do: prove that it's naturally deep when it's just a calculated genre film (sad that indie is now a genre instead of a means of producing something via independent financing). If you're that eager to waste your time I suggest taking a nap over watching this movie.

I like movies with snow in them. This is one of them. Will Farrell is in it too. I like that. I like Will Farrell. He is funny guy. OK, ok, so the movie is not GREAT I realize that. But there are some really good parts in it and hey, so what. I liked it and I'm not ashamed to admit it. I'll tell anyone who wants to hear about it all about how much I like this movie, even if you don't want to hear about it I don't care I'll still tell you. I'll keep talking about it until you walk away annoyed cuz I won't shut up about it. I love it!

"Winter Passing" is a lot of things besides being a very good movie. I don't want to miss the chance to say that it could have been a lot better, but it is what it is and what it is, is what we get. In this way, what we get is a very introspective portrait of sad and lonely people; I know it doesn't sound right but that's all I'm going to say about the film.

The thing is that when you love cinema, you watch films even if you don't know what they are about and you understand the nature of each movie; "Winter Passing's" nature is loneliness, not just its characters' but the sceneries' it's set in. In fact, it's one of the most contemplative and observing films I've seen this year.

No wonder the cinematography is by Terry Stacey from "The Door in the Floor"; it makes you watch…He uses a lot of darkness and creates a mood so depressing that sometimes you can't figure out what's going on. But it is a good trick, because when the sun comes out (and you've been expecting it); Stacey's images look beautiful.

Adam Rapp, the man who directed and wrote the film, has a good narrative eye and we sense it constantly during the film, but he also has a talent for directing actors; and there's also credit to the casting directors for this: the most unusual small ensemble. A weird and special actress (Zooey Deschanel), a comedian (Will Ferrell), a character actor (Ed Harris), and a rising English young star (Amelia Warren)…They all work perfectly together, because each of them understands the fragile situation of their character and the rest.

By the way, Harris is working really hard these days and has a lot of films we still haven't seen. And about Ferrell, I wanted to say this after watching "Blades of Glory", a regular and overrated film I didn't write about in which the comedian was the best element...Whether he does comedy or drama, his hair is long or short, black or brown; Ferrell always constructs his characters from zero. He picks little things and starts repeating them throughout a movie, to prove he is completely in character. You should pay close attention to his work in any film.

Rapp crafted a solid screenplay that's maybe a bit over sentimentalist, but he intelligently clarifies it in a crucial part of the movie. However, for a story so humane and real, he could have been harsher; because his elegant narration and images ask for it. However, in his piece, and like in the best dramas, things are said better by means of the images and not of the words; and that's always appreciated.

Also, if anything, "Winter Passing" is living proof that Zooey Deschanel is a fantastic actress; that when she wants she can leave eccentricity and also do great things (because she does great things when she's eccentric); that she can carry a whole movie by herself and that it should happen more often. But probably it won't, because she's one of the most down-to-earth people in the business, and she only works when it's worth it…Too bad.