Expired

I saw "Expired" in Salt Lake City at a regular theater screening. I simply loved it. I had no idea what to expect but my gut instincts told me to go the minute I read that it was about two parking enforcement officers (what a great premise and original idea!!!) and their unusual love affair. Well, first of all, I would like to say that I think this is Jason Patric at his best. This should be his comeback. His character, even if you may at first think he is not that nice of a person, is so well played. He manages to add so much humor and charm to his role and you do understand why she would put up with him. Samantha Morton is also great. She does so much with so little. All from her inside and so settle! It's a powerful, genuine, frank performance by both of them that carries you through the film in such a wonderful way. This film makes you feel so many things all at once: laugh, cry, sorry, uncomfortable, fun! And how can one not relate? We all have been under the spell of the parking tickets people and we all have been in a somewhat unfair relationship. But I do also think that Expired makes you think a lot and makes you realize that we are the victims of our time, with its loneliness and isolation and that this film pushes us all to go out there and get love! Does anyone know who is distributing this wonderful indie and when? I would love for my family and all my friends to see it.

This was the first movie we attended at Sundance 2007. There was quite a bit of food for thought in this movie. The main character, Claire, is a very likable person who is quite lonely. Because of her desperation, she finds herself dating a totally reprehensible person "Jay" (Jason Patric). He was such a horrible person that I had a hard time seeing just why Claire continued to let him into her life. At one point in the movie, Claire's character implored Jay to "be nice to me." That was a very poignant moment in the film. As I said earlier, this movie had lots of food for thought, most of it about why women are attracted to men who seem like jerks to the rest of the world. The movie truly didn't answer these questions, and it was a depressing film to watch. Teri Garr was very good in a dual role as Claire's stroke affected mother and as her perfectly healthy but obnoxious aunt. Samantha Morton was brilliant as Claire, and Jason Patric also did a wonderful job. It was a movie that was quite difficult to watch, however, so I don't know how successful it will be.

The movie Expired is really unlike most of the feature films you'll see these days. It has an intensity, a committed vision that grabs you and holds you in its grips for the entire hour and a half or so. Of films in recent years that share this quality, I can think of Todd Solondz' "Happiness".

Expired is the story of two L.A. parking officers, or "meter maids", one female and one male, who meet on the job and have an increasingly dysfunctional, mercurial relationship. Samantha Morton plays it extremely sweet, wide-eyed and gentle as Claire, a meter maid who lives with her stroke-incapacitated, essentially mute mother and hates having to ruin peoples' days with tickets. Jason Patric is Jay, a taut, seething, bull-shouldered ball of defensive machismo in a blue uniform with a ticket-gun and a hilarious dark mustache. He likes slapping parking tickets on folks the way some LA cops like cracking heads.

The first two thirds or so of the film especially are darkly comedic, and the purposefully stylized elements- lighting, dialogue, supporting actors, visual action, set design, musical score- create a very sharp, bittersweet, somewhat tragic kind of comedy, like the best of the Coen Brothers films. This isn't broad American multiplex comedy, this is comedy that comes from true pathos, sadness and the small calamities of life. While Morton's face shows sensitivity and vulnerability- two of her big strengths- Patric's Jay character is fantastic because he offsets the angry disciplinarian guy with loose moments of real charm and also sarcastic, almost whimsical humor.

The film progresses with a few traditional "plot points" that serve to accelerate the conflicts and create moments of challenge and decision for the characters, but really the film is also greatly a close-up examination of the attempted close relationship of two equally extreme opposites- the "naive, yearning do-gooder" and the "previously injured, prickly, defensive bully." At its core it's just a film about human beings- what they have, what they want and need, and the different places they're coming from emotionally.

Visually, the film was shot in a crisp, almost beautiful way, at once seeming straightforwardly no-nonsense and yet heavily atmospheric. A lot of the production design strongly complements the film- from the richly hued, antique-laden apartment Claire and her Mom live in to the various LA coffee shops and streetscapes. The musical scoring is also highly evocative and appropriate- with the best of it reminding me of great melodic work Michael Penn and Jon Brion did in P.T. Anderson's film 'Hard Eight'.

Ileana Douglas is perfect as Claire's decent-hearted, energetic busybody neighbor and Teri Garr is rock solid as the mute, wheelchair-bound Mom but hilarious and deliciously campy in a second role as the Mom's crazy sister in Pomona! With its strong vision and execution, 'Expired' should certainly put writer/director Cecilia Miniucchi on the Hollywood map.

I saw Expired. It's a fine film. Writer and director, Cecilia Miniucchi, did a superb job, the acting was great. What strikes me, though, is the film's uncanny resemblance to Federico Fellini's La Strada (The Road) starring Anthony Quinn, Giulietta Masina (Fellini's wife), Richard Basehart. Miniucchi said that she purposely cast Samantha Morton as the lead. I think she did so because Morton resembles Giulietta Masina. She has the same big sad eyes and innocent face. Jason Patric is the rugged emotionally crude Anthony Quinn.

In La Strada, Quinn buys Mesina from her family and takes her away in his THREE WHEEL Motorcyle caravan to help him with his little strong man road show. Mesina must beat a drum and proclaim, "Zampano is here," in each small town.

In Expired, Jason Patric, takes Claire on the road (to Pomona) in a THREE WHEEL traffic cop's vehicle.

There are a number of similar scenes throughout Expired. But in the end, Patric, like Quinn, is too crude to earn Morton's love. In La Strada, Quinn abandons Mesina, only to discover her spirit in a seaside town. The confrontation undoes him and the end of the film shows him weeping on his knees next to the sea.

Expired is one of those films that remind you about simply just being human. I was fortunate enough to watch this at it's Los Angeles screening. I found myself, as the story went along watching the audience just as much as the characters on the screen. The story is exquisitely woven, I felt the writer was a maestro just when I felt like laughing I wanted to cry. There were moments so poignant that even as the film progressed you find yourself thinking back to those scenes. This film is an emotional roller coaster, but worth the ride. Basic human emotion, empathy and relationships, this is the film to watch. No bells and whistles, just magnificent writing and performances. Jason Patric gives the performance of a lifetime and Samantha Morton is the reflection of the human soul.