Crush

This gifted performer lives and works in Auckland, thus depriving the world at large of another Meryl Streep. Lucky Kiwis can watch her most evenings on the local soap Shortland Street, where she raises the bar regularly for her costars. She has appeared on Xena and Hercules and last year patrons of the Maidment Theatre were treated to a compelling performance in The Beauty Queen of Leenane. If you want definitive proof of her talents, rent 1984's "Constance." Brilliant stuff.

I'm not a relative! Just an expat American living in Auckland who would pay to see this women reading from the phone book and wishing Hollywood would take notice.

If you're a person who likes movies that keep you guess this one certainly will until the very shocking and superb ending. I haven't seen a movie that ended so powerfully since Vertigo and I would mark this Director's incredible style and writing talents as quite good as recognized by her commendation at the Cannes Film Festival and her subsequent success in more mainstream cinema. The unique plot of the film starts of a little slowly but brings the viewer into communion with its characters through both distinct sexuality and the angst-ridden characters and how they deal with the early car accident and it's subsequent repercussions. Marcia Gay Harden puts in a riveting performance in this not to be missed film.

Skip Gladiator . . . uh-hem, I mean troy and rent this one.

The theme of a malevolent stranger insinuating herself into a family, seducing everyone in it, and wreaking havoc before getting her final comeuppance is an old tale. But it is told in this movie in a fresh and engaging way. Part of the appeal is the New Zealand landscape, and the cinematography dwells on its most unusual, dream-like aspects. Marcia Gay Harden is absolutely spot-on as the seductress. Caitlin Bossley is also very appealing as the daughter. William Zappa is rather frumpy, however, as the famous author. In an interesting twist, the direct victim of Harden's malevolence is played by Donogh Rees as a character which is just as malevolent.

Boiling mud pools, a deranged car accident victim, a precocious teenager, and a wild-woman who constantly applies blood-red lipstick. With some excellent performances from three female leads, Crush should be a runaway success. Sadly, it veers off the highway and never achieves its full potential, even though it contains enough specimens of curious merit that will be bottled and studied by ardent celluloid pathologists.

Lane (Marcia Gay Harden) is visiting New Zealand with her friend Christina to interview an award-winning novelist when their car comes off the road. Lane crawls out, but Christina needs a lengthy stay in intensive care and the make-up department before venturing out and confronting her pal who was driving. Lane, meanwhile, bonds with Angela, the author's 15yr old daughter, before seducing the old man himself and convincing us she's not gay. Naturally, a few interpersonal tensions are in order and, if you can sit through nearly two hours of badly scripted, poorly edited, unbelievable waffle, you will eventually find out who's really got it in for whom. On the way, you can enjoy some of the largely irrelevant natural attractions of New Zealand - particularly Rotorua - at least if you can bear to miss the superior production values of the average tourist video.

Among the special features on the DVD are a director's commentary (shared with Marcia Gay Harden) and an interview with the director Alison Maclean. These are essential viewing, as they enable you to see all the great things they had in mind which unfortunately don't come out in the film.

Rotorua is a smallish city on New Zealand's North Island and a major tourist attraction. It is surrounded by volcanoes, lakes, parks, and the geothermal wonderland of geysers and boiling mud pools that Kiwis love so much - and is also a showcase for Maori cultural activities. This makes it an obvious attraction for filmmakers, except that no-one apparently mentioned to them that some relevance to the story might have been a help. The opening credits linger on the bubbling mud pools, the camera loiters on the hot springs, but the script struggles to fit them into the plot. Lane is an interesting character, a sexually ambiguous intruder that cares nothing about what others think, but although well played she appears to have fallen out of a different script - maybe an old film noir or a supercharged femme fatale; and the interaction between her and the other players is so lacking in chemistry as to be non-existent. Better handled, she would truly be a force that drains the others, but I remained unconvinced that they would really be drawn to her so easily and found I had to admire the intention more than the result.

"What do you do for entertainment around her?" asks Lane, in a tone that reminded me of a wild west anti-hero. If this is all that is on offer, the answer probably won't be 'watching a movie.'

I only saw the last half of this New Zealand film on Sundance cable this evening.

Of course I wouldn't normally comment after an incomplete viewing, much less only half. I'm only doing so because so far there are no comments on IMDb, and this one deserves them. But given my partial viewing, I won't venture any more comment than this:

It's a very well filmed, intense psychological drama among four women and one man. It definitely brings a fresh perspective. It's well acted, and riveting, for those interested in intelligent, as opposed to least common denominator, dramas.

I will definitely be viewing the whole thing.