Winter Passing

This would have made a great short film, and I don't mean that as an insult.

The idea of the plot is an interesting one, but didn't seem to hold my attention for the whole film, although the festival audience didn't seem to mind that much.

Adam Rapp is off to a good start as a director, it seems he hasn't done much, but I look forward to his next film. His work with the actors was marvelous, and the camera placement wonderful too. It's just that the story seemed a little, well, difficult to swallow. There's no missing the Salinger connection, and it seems as if every cliché about his life is crammed in here.

And as much as I love Will Farrell, his genius for comedy was somewhat of a distraction- it's just hard to believe him in this role. A solid actor without a public persona would have helped me stay in the story.

But overall, an enjoyable ride.

drugs, sex, a disturbed girl with a disturbed past, her father is a salinger-esquire recluse, and when she doesn't want to find anything back home, she finds herself.

this is the description of this film and about 100 films a year at every film festival you attend. you can throw a ball into a pit of films at a film festival and hit a dozen of these. the only reason this one got made is because of the cast. that's it. it moves very slowly along and doesn't dare make an interesting scene captivating enough to wake you from your sleep. the only redeeming factor is Will Ferrell's character. he is quite funny and as you can imagine does at some comic relief. there is nothing special from this movie. there is nothing in this movie that separates it from any other indie film. don't expect much from this "how to make an indie film" film.

One of the challenges Winter Passing faces is getting the audience to empathize with characters enough to ride the film's emotional ups-and-downs. Director Adam Rapp took a risk by placing so many of the events which define each character outside of the story, instead conveying these details through conversations between characters (i.e. "Who's pills are these?" or "Who is Corbit and why does he live here?").

The potential reward of this "Tell-Don't-Show" approach is that the director can add dimension to the characters by providing a greater quantity of personal history and details. The risk, however, is that the audience won't invest enough emotionally in the characters to really care about what happens to them.

The acting was quite good; I'm always glad to see Will Ferrell push beyond his slapstick beginnings, and he and Zooey Deschanel have very believable chemistry. But by relying so heavily on dialogue and description, the film subverts the medium, and made it hard for me to identify with any of the four main characters.

Though the cover for the DVD of WINTER PASSING (a photo of the four main characters crowded into a box) may make many potential viewers pass over this little film, thinking that it must be silly slapstick, this is a fine film written and directed with finesse and style by Adam Rapp, a new face whose talents have been somewhat limited to working on episodes of the TV series 'The L Word'. Rapp gives notice of a fine writer and an equally fine director in this barely noticed little touching movie.

Reese Holdin (Zooey Deschanel) lives in New York, an actress relegated to small parts in off Broadway theater while spending her days as a bartender hooked on alcohol, drugs and casual sex. Her life seems dead-ended: she has become anesthetized by her manner of living. An agent (Amy Madigan) approaches her with an offer to pay her for the letters between her parents, both once famous authors. Her mother has just died, and Reese didn't attend her funeral, so distant does she feel is her relationship to her past. But the spark of money moves her to ride a bus back to her Michigan home to salvage the letters to sell for publication.

Arriving home she is greeted by the weird Corbit (Will Ferrell), a Christian electric guitar player and composer who ears black eyeliner etc, but does care for Reese's severely alcoholic father - the once famous writer Don Holdin (Ed Harris) who hasn't written a novel in years and lives in the garage of his home under the care of Corbit and an ex-student Shelley (Amelia Warner), a bright very young girl with demons of her own. Reese works at reconnecting with her father, struggles with her resentment for the 'caregivers', and ultimately finds the letters she came for, only to make discoveries about her dysfunctional family and her father's status that alters her view of his value as her parent.

The movie is rather stagy and most of the action is unspoken, and while that technique of telling this particular story seems exactly right to this viewer, there are some who will feel frustrated at the rather static pace of the film. Zooey Deschanel once again proves that she is one of our finest actresses on the screen and hopefully this role will bring her to the attention of casting agents and result in our seeing more of this gifted actress in the future. Ed Harris is superb as the wasted, quietly grieving has-been author, keeping his performance understated and in doing so creating a character that is indelible in our minds long after the movie is over. Amelia Warner is also a fine little actress and even galumphing Will Ferrell brings more than his usual tiring comedic talents to this touching role. In all this is a movie that deserves wide attention. There is more to quietly hear and understand about interpersonal relationships than we would expect from the cover! Grady Harp

Winter Passing is remarkable for several reasons. The performances of Zooey Deschanel and Ed Harris are resonant and moving. The look and the music of the film are quite lovely and evoke a hurt, longing that works well with the theme of the film. And finally, the story itself is remarkable for anyone who's familiar with the life and enigma of the writer J.D. Salinger. For anyone who has read his daughter, Margaret Salinger's wonderful memoir, "Dream Catcher," the film will play like a thinly veiled reference to her life with the highly lauded and tragically flawed father who is a legend and inspiration to generations and a horror as a father.