Forty Shades of Blue

"40 Shades of Blue" updates Tennessee Williams and puts his archetypal characters into the Memphis music scene. Rip Torn is like Big Daddy, here a legendary music producer (as bolstered by taking fictional credit for the classic soul songs of Bert Berns with local color provided by musical luminaries such as Jim Dickinson and Sid Selvidge) and his mannerisms recall Sam Phillips. As his son, Darren Burrows, in a hunky and magnetic return to public consciousness since TV's "Northern Exposure," recalls Brick, though here his brooding is Oedipal. Dina Korzun is a trophy girlfriend who depends on the kindness of strangers.

In a mirror image of "Laurel Canyon," which also brought a prodigal son home to a legendary music producer parent with a younger lover, co-writer/director Ira Sachs well creates believable strained family interactions. All three interact so sweetly with the lovely toddler son that it becomes clear what warmth is missing among the adults.

The production design and use of Memphis locales reinforce an industry town where Torn's "Alan James" is well-known, and a lived-in house that includes photos and portraits on the living room wall. We also see that his cohort impresarios (whose music is actually passé these days in Memphis, as shown in "Hustle & Flow" and Torn refers to in a speech that nostalgically recalls how classic soul music was a partnership between black and whites) are mostly surrounded by much younger women.

Korzun's trophy girlfriend "Laura" is the most problematical, but it's not clear if it's the script or her acting. Sometimes she is clearly in "Lost in Translation" mode, as a Russian who has no connection to Memphis music and nothing to say to the people surrounding Torn and vice versa, and she wistfully notes that when she writes in English her handwriting looks like a child's.

Sometimes her teen age babysitter has more gumption and insight than she does. The other characters are constantly asking her how she's doing and she gives a different lie each time. Other times she can speak forthrightly and stand up for her opinions, as when she insists to a friend that the father and son do not share looks or characteristics, or acknowledging that she is living better than anyone from her home. From the opening scene of her shopping in the cosmetics section of a department store as symbols of her putting on her game face, her character seems to be Sphinx-like, but Korzun does create a sympathetic portrait of a confused, trapped bird and your heart does go out to her poignant efforts to be her own woman.

The film seems to build toward a confrontation that almost happens but doesn't quite, though that might mean that the characters have made a decision about their lives, as the son chooses not to be like his father, after several scenes where he did seem to be imitating his behavior.

The lack of a climax may be realistic, but it doesn't make for effective drama.

This is a quietly brilliant film, a real gem, mostly because every frame of Forty Shades of Blue reeks of cinema; it's a film lover's film, and, maybe more importantly, a lovers' film, a romance/drama that is human, complex and entertaining at the same time.

I was blown away by Sachs' attention to details and command of his actors. There's nothing flashy to his naturalistic approach, yet the three main actors/lovers shine, and the camera feels at ease even in the most intimate moments.

If this movie was in French, it would be up for an academy award as a foreign language film, in the U.S. they will treat it as a small, indie film. That's reality. But the reality this film captures, a triangle between a Russian woman, her much older, legendary music producer husband and his son, speaks to a greater truth - that people are fragile and wanting, that life in the West is so good, it makes us soft and even more fragile and wanting and selfish and human than we want to acknowledge. That at the end of the day we all want to love and be loved and be safe. When was the last time you saw a movie so simple and giving in its complexity?

It's set in Memphis, but it speaks an international language and I hope this film gets seen everywhere, not just festivals.

This is the first Ira Sachs film I've seen (his IMDb lists another feature, The Delta, and some shorts) but I'm certain there will be many more. Let's just hope Hollywood doesn't corrupt his unique talent and respect for movies and human beings.

Oh, and it's got some great music too.

Film-making with such an eye for detail and nuance is rarely to be seen in America and I'm overjoyed that the Sundance committee stepped forward to recognize it. Forty Shades of Blue is a fascinated witness to heartbreak and refuses all melodrama, all sentimentality in favor of fully lived characters that are shocking in their naturalism---the Russian actress in particular is astonishing but what is even more astonishing is the subtlety with which the director observes her. It is the most careful portrait of loneliness I have ever seen.

Unlike most directors who point us in every frame at their star or their theme, Sachs--like Robert Altman--often points out details and people of the setting (Memphis) so that we are quite sure we're not seeing actors at all, and the effect is not the closed-room feel you would expect of a love triangle, but a place and time fixed forever by the lens. Ira Sachs has coaxed great performances from his actors, his hometown and the musicians who perform like a Greek chorus throughout. It's quite a masterpiece.

"Forty Shades of Blue" features Rip Torn as an acerbic, hard-drinking music producer in Memphis who, though greatly beloved by his fans and the people in the industry, is viewed somewhat differently by those who know him best. Despite his advanced age, he has a gorgeous live-in girlfriend, Laura (Dina Korzun), whom he met while on a business trip to Russia and, even though they seem to be reasonably devoted to one another and their relationship, Laura is becoming increasing morose as a result of his constant philandering. When Alan's married son, Michael (Darren E. Burrows) - who has reasons of his own for resenting the man - comes from California for a visit, he and Laura enter into a secret love affair that forces her to finally question her commitment to Alan and to perhaps cut the chords - both obligatory and emotional - that bind her to him.

Although the script does an effective job capturing the tensions simmering just beneath the surface of the story, the plot itself seems too conventional and too underdeveloped to engage the viewer completely. Still the characters are complex enough and the performances sufficiently layered to at least hold our interest throughout. Torn is particularly good at creating a character whose amiability and likability on the surface mask a callousness and mean-spiritedness below.

This is a subtle, if not exactly gripping, study of the compromises we make - and the choices we come to regret - in our effort to avoid loneliness and to find meaning and happiness in life.

Just saw this movie in the Best of Fest for Sundance 05 and can honestly say I hated every minute of it. As I walked out the theater I wondered if the Sundance judges had pulled a joke on us since this was the supposed Best Drama picture this year... I heard many other disgruntled folks around me saying this was just agonizing to sit through which sums it up perfectly. Although Rip Torn did a great job, the other characters were just plain annoying and moved through this hollow storyline without motive or any indication of life. Even the final shot of the movie evoked some unintentional laughter from the restless audience. This would be great for those battling insomnia.