Down to the Bone

This movie telegraphs its tone in the first minute -- as others have pointed out, it's not exactly breezy. But it is well worth making the commitment to watch.

Farmiga's performance has integrity and guts, especially when she's interacting with the kids, but all her interactions with the secondary characters have a compelling spark of reality to them. She uses her whole body to say a line, the way real people sometimes do, especially when under stress. As in her other works, she commands every scene she's in. It's nice to see her own an entire film.

I felt the same subversive sweetness under the surface that many classic, superbly observed films seem to share, along with an astringently dry humor and personality, while remaining almost unrelentingly bleak on the surface. I found the final ten seconds particularly satisfying.

Having been intrigued by Vera Farmiga's idiosyncratic turn as a confused police psychologist in Martin Scorsese's viscerally impressive "The Departed", I was curious to see her in this critically acclaimed low-budget 2005 indie. As it turns out, she gives a startling, soul-bearing performance as Irene, a working class wife and mother with a cocaine dependency problem. The primary difference between this film and more conventionally moralizing addiction movies is how her drug-taking habit has so casually permeated her life.

Written (with Richard Lieske) and directed by first-timer Debra Granik, the film provides a documentary-like feel for Irene's downtrodden existence in New York's blue-collar-dominated Ulster County as a supermarket cashier, who has been likely a stoner for most of her adult life. Cut off by her drug dealer for falling behind on her payments, she pilfers one of her children's birthday checks and realizes the depths she has plumbed. Checking herself into rehab, Irene looks like she is on the road to recovery, but she is hamstrung by an affair that starts with Bob, a male nurse recovered from his own addiction. Compounded by her firing from the market and a husband who continues to enable her, she finds herself in a vicious circle of entangled dependency and dwindling hope.

The movie gets choppy and unnecessarily elliptical at times, although it is not as desultory as one would expect from the set-up. Don't expect any bravura set pieces for Farmiga, who is in almost every scene. It is the utter sense of emotional desolation she conveys in the small moments that resonates. Even when she shows how much she cares for her two sons or has moments of hope about a brighter future, there is a lingering melancholy that haunts all her scenes. Though clearly overshadowed, Hugh Dillon is quite good as Bob, as is Clint Jordan as husband Steve. I was surprised to find out from the informative commentary track by Granik and Farmiga that many of the supporting players were local non-actors. The 2006 DVD also includes the primitive but still impressive 1997 twenty-minute short, "Snake Feed", upon which the film is based.

Farmiga in one of her earlier works (and the earliest work I've ever seen from her) is just mesmerizing. At this point to rave about her is to say the expected, but she plays a different sort of character in this one, not quite something I'd seen her do before and so she does things differently but also is fearless in a very compromising, familiar way. She's riveting to watch, and that's the beauty of her acting in pretty much everything I see her in. The supporting cast also does some fine work, but no one could hold a candle to Farmiga, or even try to really. Also interesting to see Debra Granik from Winter's Bone and how she grew to become an even better filmmaker.

"Down to the Bone" follows in the tradition of classic addiction and rehab movies (such as "Clean and Sober"), but it doesn't stoop to any clichés.

The key to the story's credibility is the director's documentary style, the use of authentic, working class locales in Upstate New York, and terrific acting.

Debut director Debra Granik and co-writer Richard Lieske don't follow the typical trajectory of horrific addiction experiences ("Lost Weekend," "Leaving Las Vegas," "Requiem for a Dream," etc.), though there's some frightening close calls, but quietly build an accretion of how a drug habit affects a mother and her family in her daily life as a cashier and living in a house her ne'er do well husband never finishes renovating. With no explication or back story, "Irene"s life plays out for us completely through what we see in grainy digital video and the characters' inarticulate interactions.

Rehab is only the half-way point in a continuing struggle (and we have seen the 12-steps many times but perhaps not this drearily matter-of-factly) and the film is brilliant at demonstrating just how difficult it is to quit when everywhere there are not only triggers for physical need but how those around her benefited in some way from her behavior when she was high and keep encouraging her to indulge. Lapsing is cynically referred to as "the 13th step." None of these insights are hammered home redundantly as we see her frustrations and resiliency.

I've noted Vera Farmiga in various TV series, but here she reveals guts, strength and range below her fragile beauty as she very believably, step by step, gives "Irene" backbone. Her chemistry with a seductively magnetic Hugh Dillon is terrific as their relationship goes from attraction to risk to independence.

Though at one point New York City is a bit tritely used as a tempting source for drugs, the primary settings in snowy Kingston and Ulster County, with its downscale stores, weatherbeaten houses, high unemployment and desolate highway scapes set the characters in a very believable, multi-racial setting.

There is a bit of heavy-handed symbolism with a pet snake, but the young children are terrifically natural, especially in their whiney-ness and physical reactions.

The soundtrack unobtrusively includes an interesting selection of indie rock, including by Dillon's band.

I had the opportunity to see this film again at the Florida Film Festival (after having seen it screened at Sundance), and I have to say even though I was watching the film for a 2nd time, I still found myself completely engaged in the narrative. The film was awarded the Grand Jury Prize for Best Narrative Feature. At times, I nearly forgot that I was watching a film. Vera Farmiga gives a powerful and evocative performance, which must rank among the best in her career. Down to the Bone seems rooted in the cinematic schools of Cinema Verite and Neo-Realism, and the Director, Debra Granik, obviously seems devoted to the idea of making a film without the usual Hollywood bells and whistles. So, the film depicts the bleakness of drug addiction, but without sensationalizing it with the usual tropes: Overdoses, guns, car chases, etc...

The end of the film is left ambiguous, which forces the filmviewer to forego the simplicities of a stock ending; the audience is given the ability to draw their own conclusions. Your choice--does the film have a happy ending or not? Of course, this is not too dissimilar to the dilemmas that people face in real life.

This film is certainly not for everyone. It demands the focus and attention of the filmgoer. As such, Down to the Bone is geared more to the committed and sophisticated cinema enthusiast. The film features a minimalist soundtrack, from which it is difficult to draw the obvious emotive clues. The cinematography is original, as the viewer is exposed to a seemingly endless palette of grays. However, it is not an "easy" film to watch--there is no "eye candy" for the viewer.

Debra Granik's Feature Film Directoral debut shows tremendous promise, and I look forward to her future projects. I rate this film as very good: a 9 out of 10. Frankly, I'm at a loss in understanding why a dozen of IMDB users have rated this film just as a "2". Can the Film Juries at Sundance and Florida be so off the mark? I guess that the cliche is true: there really is no accounting for taste!