Dirty

Highly entertaining movie, full of good dialogue and individual scenes, very effectively placed on the precipice of darkness and despair, the main problem being that it just sort of hangs there, not so much ending as just running out. The improvised, deeply discovered feel of the project certainly pays off - Chula (middle-aged marijuana grower) finds real nuance in her mid-life character, her agenda never openly stated; Ratner as a guy one step behind, frustrated and prone to moments of sexual grasping, is an equally challenging creation; Sivak's bankruptcy is a more conventional strand, but well conveyed by an attractive actress. Although Scholte's decline into desperate masochistic sex and his pathetic obsession with Chula may be the main plot motor, it's the most conventional, the most obviously "dirty" and the least rewarding aspect of the film. The movie is attractively shot in a dark-hued, claustrophobic manner, intimately in tune with its characters, only occasionally falling too easily into conventional alienation and disillusionment.