Suspicious River

some people might call this movie weak, i don't think so.. if you think it's weak your only seeing the surface of it, this movie has much going on but it's all deep down, this movie is "REAL" compared to some of the stuff that has come out of hollywood lately, it doesn't seem like it had a large budget either, it does not follow the normal cookie cutter image if a "blockbuster" or anything else.. parker had a very hard roll to play in this movie i thought she pulled it off quite well if you like independant films and something different this is a very good well done movie!

Leila Murray (Molly Parker) works in a quiet roadside motel. Her husband is slowly wasting away. She starts prostituting herself to the motel guests. She is uncontrollably drawn to one of them, the possessive volatile Gary Jensen (Callum Keith Rennie). Her life slowly spirals downward and she can't stop.

Molly Parker has a haunted presence. The movie is a bit slow. It needs to have higher tension. The husband needs to do something. The most compelling confrontation actually comes from Millie. There is a bit of violence but it could be scarier. There is darkness here but most of it is hidden inside Leila. The movie needs to bring that darkness out onto the screen.

This is a rather distasteful indie film from Canadian director Lynn Stopkewich. Set in Washington state, where apparently it rains all the time, it features Molly Parker as a hooker motel clerk who is trying to raise money to escape her dreary life. One of her clients, Callum Keith Rennie, appears to be her ticket out of dullsville, but turns out to be her worst nightmare. To describe these people as dysfunctional does dysfunctional people a disservice. The movie is populated by characters would make even Jerry Springer blush - drunks, cheaters and physically abusive men. The only missing deviant behavior here is incest and necrophilia, and that's only because Miss Parker has already covered the latter in 1996's Kissed for the same director. Parker and Rennie are remarkable actors, and Stopkewich is a capable director who isn't afraid to push the envelope and take chances with her craft. I only wish they would have given us something to aspire to instead of dredging up the seedy lives of these miserable characters.

A deeply disturbing film, with some coarsely difficult scenes to view. Dark from the outset, with nary a glimmer of hope evident in its passing, this film is wanting to capture much more than it does. Overt symbolism weakens the plot, and were it not for Molly Parker and Callum Keith Rennie's stunning performances, this film would be seriously damaged. A difficult film to recommend.

As a woman, I am deeply saddened and troubled by the fact that someone would invest human intelligence, labor, and money to produce such darkness and ugliness in the disguise of indie cinema. We all know that the world is ugly and cruel and we do not need to be constantly reminded of that. Why not create something uplifting and beautiful? Why not give us a chance to breath? Why some indie films have to be so meaninglessly vile in order to be artsy? I simply cannot believe that this film was both written and directed by women. How sickening! How disturbing! And what message were they trying to send to the world by depicting women in such offensive fashion?