Morvern Callar

I looked at my watch quite frequently during Morvern Callar. I first felt impatient during the opening sequence which seemed unnecessarily drawn out. I'm sure living with a corpse in a small apartment for apparently several days can't have been very pleasant as decay starts to set in.

There are other parts of the film that just don't ring true, either. How did she use her boyfriend's debit card to get access to his entire balance? Also, I can't believe that the publishers would find her a credible author. I would have been very suspicious of her attitude and empty-headedness.

There were some beautiful images and some likeable scenes in this film, but it was like sitting through someone else's dream. The more I think about this film the less I really like it. Downgraded from my initial score of seven to a six.

I have to say that Samantha Morton is a superb actress. She doesn't play a part so much as become the part. I only hope that she's grounded enough in real life to survive this kind of immersion in her roles.

If you are feeling too much Christmas cheer left over from the holidays, a perfect antidote is Lynne Ramsay's second feature Morvern Callar. Based on a 1995 novel by Alan Warner, Morvern Callar, superbly performed by Samantha Morton, is a 21-year old supermarket clerk in a Scottish town who wakes in a semi-stupor to discover the sprawling corpse of her boyfriend on the kitchen floor. With Christmas tree lights flashing, she caresses his body but seems unable to act rationally. All she can think to do is open the Christmas presents that include a music tape labeled "Music for You".

She also finds a note in which he apologizes for his act, directs her to publish his recently completed novel, and reveals that he has given her access to his bank account. Morvern does not tell anyone about his death and astonishingly no one asks any questions. Matter of factly, she changes the name on the novel to her own, mails it to a publisher, then cuts up his body in the bathtub, and buries it using only a flat-bladed garden tool.

Using her newfound money, Morvern takes her girlfriend Lanna, played by nonprofessional actress Kathleen McDermott, to the Costa del Clubland in Spain on an extended vacation. They engage in drinking, sex, and drugs to the beat of a hip rock music soundtrack that includes The Velvet Underground, Aphex Twin, and Can. Ramsay creates a technically stylized dreamscape in which physical sensation takes the place of narrative, dialogue is sparse and self-examination is non existent.

When a publisher offers Morvern an advance of 100,00 pounds for a novel she did not write, she believes she has found the ticket to endless pleasure and, after an argument, ditches Lanna somewhere in the Spanish countryside but remains closed and enigmatic to the end. Morvern is impenetrable and unreflective, content to drift along in a mental and physical haze, lacking any sense of right or wrong or feelings for others. Morvern Callar is a beautiful looking film and an enticing sensual experience, but ultimately I found it uninvolving and lacking in emotional depth or integrity.

I won't summarise the plot as it is done so by other reviewers.

This is a highly original and unconventional yet mesmerising piece and I agree with many others that Lynne Ramsay is an exceptional talent, who possesses a vision the likes of Guy Ritchie could never even begin to imagine.

This is not an easy film to watch and it requires patience and concentration. Ramsay lets the film unfurl, slowly, with confidence and an assured touch that uses mystery and a touch of incoherence to create a confusing but oddly compelling dreamscape. Where are we? What are we seeing? What exactly is Morvern thinking and feeling? She is clearly in a very strange, disorientated headspace and this film is perfectly engineered to assist us in understanding and occupying that space.

The mystery and enigma of Morvern is wonderfully portrayed by Samantha Morton and the soundtrack encapsulates the atmosphere, as does the lack of incidental music.

Those that want to quibble over inconsistencies such as the direction of the computer keyboard delete key and whether it is in fact possible to bury a body on the moors with a trowel should get over it, step back and look at the big picture.

Ramsey's second film after the totally impressive Ratcatcher has an air of aimlessness about it. I haven't read the book but the film has only one idea: how does a girl behave when she finds her boyfriend dead with slashed wrists on the floor of their flat? Callar's response is almost post-contemporary - what happens here could simply never have been conceived of more than a few years ago. We follow Samantha Morton (as Callar) through subsequent hazy meanderings with her girlfriend. We assume she is in severe temporary shock at the tragedy - so the creeping suspicion that she is simply a half-wit is disappointing, though all the soft drugs confounds the issue. Life seems impoverished here, as if the city has sucked something out of people. Even death is meaningless.

The early part of the film looks dangerously like Catherine Breillat territory - the last thing we need is an original talent like Ramsey to start ripping people off - and I think she was only partly able to haul herself out of the Breillat groove. The tension lapses completely during the second half when Callar goes on holiday in Spain, and there is a silly scene when she meets publishers and passes herself off as the writer of her dead boyfriend's novel that we could have done without.

On the whole, very nicely executed though; a fine performance by Morton, a great and atmospheric opening, and some cool music including Aphex Twin make it worth watching. Pity there wasn't more to it.

After all the hype that greeted Lynne Ramsay's first film, Ratcatcher, which I didn't see, I approached this with caution. The presence of Samantha Morton was my guarantee that it would at least be watchable, as she's never yet put a foot wrong on screen. And boy was my faith rewarded! It's a long time since I've emerged from a cinema so entranced, and then started itching to see the film again just a few hours later.

Samantha Morton's performance is truly extraordinary, bringing to life this mysterious, inscrutable woman who is at the same time very alive and in-your-face, not out of place getting smashed at a party, yet seeming like an alien as she wanders around listening to her walkman with a dazed 1000 yard stare. I was amazed to read that Kathleen McDermott, who plays her best friend, is a non-professional; it says a lot for her performance that she holds her own opposite such a stellar talent - and also says a lot for the naturalism and generosity of Morton's performance.

Some critics have been much exercised by the implausibilities in the plot (around the fate of her boyfriend's body and the dealings with the publisher, for example). I don't care about all that stuff! This film is as far away from gritty realism as it's possible to get. Go with the flow and soak up the atmosphere is my advice.

You may read that this film is beautifully photographed, that every shot is a small work of art, exquisitely composed and framed. If not, you've just read it from me. That's all very well, of course - they say the same things about Peter Greenaway, who as far as I'm concerned would have been burnt at the stake in a more civilised age. The difference here is the warmth and seeming spontaneity of Lynne Ramsay's work. I didn't hear a voice shouting "look at me, aren't I beautifully filmed??". She doesn't tell us, she just shows us, revealing a gift for finding beauty in the mundane.

The other stroke of genius in this film is the soundtrack - and I don't just mean the music, although that is brilliantly chosen, revealing a trace of gallows humour in the film's grisliest scene; no, just the use of sound, the way we can hear everything, even the cockroach scuttling along the hotel room floor; and the way some of the conversations fade in from a distance, but in such a way that we can still just about hear what is being said.

For once, the hype is justified: Lynne Ramsay is the real deal, and Samantha Morton deserves another Oscar nomination for this breathtaking performance. Unreservedly recommended. So there.