Miss Monday

1998 Sundance Film Festival award winning "Miss Monday" transports us to a state of mind we all want to deny, but need to see. The director, Benson Lee, makes us laugh with some comedy, then slams down a serious and sensitive subject on our heads. This extreme change of emotions is what creates the overall ambience of the movie. The main character is brilliantly acted by Andrea Hart, and sexy James Hicks' Roman is our guide in this movie full of powerful emotions and seamless storytelling. Absolutely brilliant.

Miss Monday is a disturbingly intelligent look at the pains of life that exist behind closed doors. What plays as a stalker/voyeur film turns into a startling and significant realization about the pain and suffering many people endure and hide from the world. The film is as honest and painful as one might hope when indulging into the core of its voyeur's subject.

"Miss Monday" tells of a screenwriter (Hicks) wrestling with his script. Unable to get into the character of his female lead he researches her by stalking a randomly selected yuppie woman (Hart) and gets more than he bargained for. The film begins as a shoddy comedy/lite-drama with poor flow and too many nonsequiturs and then turns into a dark and disturbing drama leaving us to wonder if Lee is a genius or simply got lucky. Regardless, this little low budget British indie gets off to a slow start but pays off for those who hang in there. Kudos to Hart whose performance makes the film.

Strongly and admittedly influenced by Polanski, the writer-- in this film featuring the writer of a film featuring the writer of a film-- enters an abject little world fraught with the possibility of violent confrontation at any moment. He is following a wise-sounding credo that tells him that by deeply portraying the individual he will reveal the type (but try to portray the type and you will reveal nothing). Does he succeed? Or does the credo, by which he hopes to portray the type, lead him ironically to a revelation of the individual?

Finally, in a period of crisis for filmmaking, a director who knows how to handle his subject perfectly. My personal favourite for 1998 (so far).