Claire Dolan

"Claire Dolan" isn't normally my kind of film - sex and betrayal and self-hate and the like - but it has a few things going for it. Vincent D'Onofrio gives a typically good performance, with the kind of subtlety that he does so well. Colm Meaney is also good, extremely unlikable here. Katrin Cartlidge, in the title role, is a bit of a mystery. She's excellent, but tough to identify with.

I watched the film mainly for Lodge Kerrigan. I'd previously seen his other two films in a similar vein. Which is, to say, stories of loners emotionally cut off from the world around them. But in this case, I found myself thinking that a little more distance would be appreciated. In his first and second films, "Clean, Shaven" and "Keane", the characters are so distant that they're practically on another planet. That is an approach that Kerrigan is much more successful at. Here, the relationships drag down and unfocus things a bit too much. Which brings me back to D'Onofrio. He is the best part of "Claire Dolan". All scenes with him are the best, the most intense.

The cinematography is good. Clean, crisp, and harsh. Teodoro Maniaci does great work here. He shot Kerrigan's first film, "Clean, Shaven", and he brings out the same sense of alienation here. In the end, this is a pretty good film. Not nearly as good as it might have been, but there's something to be gained from the experience.

Claire Dolan (Katrin Cartlidge) is a prostitute. Like many of them, she really doesn't like sex at all, or even most men, and sees it as a job. She's in debt to her pimp, Roland Cain (Colm Meaney) after he helps pay the medical bills of Claire's dying mother. When her mother passes on, Claire runs off and starts working in a salon, and meets a nice cabby named Elton (Vincent D'Onofrio). But Cain finds her, and he wants his money.

Lodge H. Kerrigan has not directed many films, but if they are as good as this one, I would like to see them. He captures how sterile the sex Claire has is, and shows how she really doesn't enjoy it. I was a bit shocked by how many of the men spoke to Claire. I was taught not to talk to women that way, but then again, guys going to prostitutes probably aren't exactly classy people anyway. Kerrigan does great work with reflections throughout this film, and the ending with Roland and Elton talking on the street gives closure in it's own way.

The acting was awesome. I didn't know Kartlidge could be so prickly, and I would never have imagined Meaney playing a guy who could yell like that. D'Onofrio is a good actor who wasn't given much to work with, although in his last scene with Claire he is far more disturbing than I think any other actor could be, which was what Kerrigan needed. Good, but not for the squeamish, as the movie is about a prostitute and is graphic.

After seeing this film I was immediately struck by its similarities to Chantal Akerman's Jeanne Dielman. Certainly, they are very different films, but there is a significant overlap, not just in subject matter and character--Jeanne and Claire--but also in approach. So much of Claire's life passes in silence or repetition that the parallels to Jeanne are fairly strong. Also, viewing Claire in the context of Jeanne at least suggests that having a child will not at all be the answer and solution that Claire is looking for, as motherhood did not make Jeanne Dielman's life wonderful. This film never looks as stark or as imagistic or as metaphorically thought through as Akerman's film, but as it moves along, and despite prosaic and occasionally clumsy scenes, it does attain a visual presence, and aspires to some imagistic displays. When her pimp asserts ruthlessly deterministic views of Claire, they cast a huge shadow on the events left unresolved, and few viewers can come away from this film with anything approaching an upbeat reading; but as a reminder that humans are fragile, frustrating, frustrated and often just aimlessly pathetic, this can stand alone, a stones throw away from a brilliant experiment like Akerman's Jeanne Dielman.

An excellent evocation of urban alienation, this film has a consistently minimal style that reveals a lot without showing much. Pure cinema, one of the most interesting independent American movies (actually it looks like a genuine European film) of the past few years. It establishes director Lodge Kerrigan as one to watch.

In New York, the Irish expensive prostitute Claire Dolan (Katrin Cartlidge) owes a huge amount to her pimp Roland Cain (Colm Meaney). When her mother dies, Claire moves to Newark, and tries to work honestly as a beautician. She meets the taxi driver Elton Garrett (Vincent D'Onofrio) and they have an affair. Elton falls in love for her and later, when he becomes aware of the situation, he tries to help her to pay her enormous debt to get rid off Roland, while Claire wants to have a baby.

"Claire Dolan" is an excellent independent erotic movie that presents a touching and very real story. The performance of Katrin Cartlidge is stunning, and she deserved a nominations for the Oscar for her acting as Claire Dolan. I could never imagine that Katrin Cartlidge has such a beautiful body. The excellent Vincent D'Onofrio and Colm Meaney have also great performances. The scene where Roland tells Elton that "a whore is always a whore" is very sad and the inconclusive open end is wonderful for such a good story. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Claire Dolan"