Laura Smiles

"Laura Smiles" is an alarmingly effective portrait of a woman's mental breakdown.

We are introduced to "Laura" at her happiest time, in a warm, loving relationship with her fiancé (a very appealing Kip Pardue) in the city, literally the love of her life. In flashbacks, we then see the sweet development of this relationship out of order as these moments become brightly lit and colored memories that desperately intrude on her later in life, as she becomes consumed with guilt and remorse over his fate.

These feelings start to overwhelm her current life as a wife and mother. As something inconsequential in what she calls her "suburban drudgery" triggers the past -- in the supermarket, cooking, cleaning, at a school play-- she acts out increasingly aberrantly to counteract the feelings they generate, especially when she can no longer distinguish past from present from dreams, recalling Blanche Du Bois.

While writer/director Jason Ruscio said in Q & A at the Tribeca Film Festival that he was inspired by the break-up of his relationship with the lead actress Petra Wright, the film is the most vivid portrayal I've seen of manic depression. Whereas depression is usually portrayed in films simplistically as catatonia, as in "Off the Map," here we see her acting out, in ways that ended up losing the audience's sympathy for her. She is also set up in contrast to the men around her who are sympathetic or understandable, including Jonathan Silverman as a grief-stricken lover who can keep in touch with reality. Nor do the therapy sessions make her more sympathetic, as she lies to the shrink and then, frighteningly, the therapy doesn't even help her.

It becomes as painful for the audience as for her to recall her earlier happy life as she seems to leave the present for it, like a Jack Finney time travel story.

This is a raw, bleak "Desperate Housewives" without the humor or satire.

I saw this film in Vail, (definitely a cool festival by the way) and have found myself increasingly coming back to it in my mind. Ruscio plays chronological constructs brilliantly. "Laura" was reminiscent of Cassevettes work and the great films of the 70's. Ruscio purposefully gaps in the audience's understanding which is very effective in creating tension which are satisfied in lighting bolt bursts of realization.

This is an examination of the very real trouble we can find ourselves in so swiftly as life trundles by, when we refuse to face the truth, or love ourselves at the core...even if it is just enough to see another day, or find another love.

Jonathon Silverman's portrayal of the lover who gets run over by the train of Petra Wright's (Laura) madness is nothing less than an accumulated and focused sum of the skills he had developed in "....". In my mind, he adds an incredible ground wire to the voltage Ms. Wright delivers from beginning to end.

I'd say that Laura Smiles is a definite must see.

the past as only side of reality. a woman and her need to escape far from her life. a psychiatric case. or only portrait of a crisis who is not really different by many of viewers. a film who has one ambition - to be realistic. to explore each part of a vain search of sense. to use each scene not for sympathetic verdict by for true image of fall. it is not an easy movie because reflects pieces from ordinary life. Madame Bovary, maniac-depressive, each is at right place. but scene by scene you discover common experiences of a woman who becomes part of her past. and who has not force to accept reality more than shadow of a fundamental experience. far to usual dramas, it seems be a Bergman sketch. a film not about sickness but about a crisis who defines large parts of society.

This is the kind of movie that you go to when you just can't bear to go to another crappy Hollywood blockbuster. I saw it at the 2005 Tribeca festival and scanned the trades until I saw the review in Variety that pays the film the tribute it deserves.

Ronnie Scheib nailed it on the head: "Sharp dialogue, idiosyncratic characters and a wickedly brilliant structure that subtly derails expectation make "Laura Smiles" a rarity among mellers. Jason Ruscio's sophomore feature traces the quietly psycho, often hilarious disintegration of an American housewife. "Laura" could become an indie "American Beauty.""

This film is about a suburban housewife's marriage falling apart because of her unresolved issues in the past.

Though the film is initially slow, it gets better steadily during the course of the film. The plot is non linear, but it is easily understandable and well told. I like how events are partially presented first, and then told in more detail after other events are laid out to make more sense of the initial event. The lead character, Laura, is portrayed amazingly. Petra Wright wide range of emotions is impressive, and I am surprised that she has not made it big. If this film had big A List stars in it, I am confident it would be a hit.