Scalene

A perceptual thriller told from three points-of-view revolving around the rape of a female college student by a mentally handicapped man and his mother's subsequent revenge after his incarceration.

I have to give this film some credit. I started off not liking it, thinking the acting was poor and the characters unlikeable. The film quality was also somewhat suspect (though this might just be because I was watching a screener and not a "real" release).

As it progressed, I still found the mother's acting to be a bit weak, but the other characters more than made up for her shortcomings. And then the film goes for an emotional punch, and another one, and one more... the characters remain unlikeable, but this turns out to be the beauty of the film. We find it hard to sympathize with the mother, despite her years of hardship. We find it hard to sympathize with the caretaker as her exploitation motives come more and more to the forefront. The only one who seems to come out unscathed is the disabled boy...

Films without heroes are hard to judge. I think people generally walk away feeling dirty or empty inside and therefore want to give the film a bad rating or review. In fact, if they do this, I feel they missed the point. Any film that is able to affect you, make you feel empty or dirty, is powerful. Films make us feel happy or sad all the time, but few really present humanity in all its blemished notoriety.

I want to congratulate Zack Parker on this film. While it is by no means a perfect film, it is a powerful film and an emotional uppercut.

When I first saw Scalene, I left the viewing with a big WOW!. Great independent film and kudos to the director, producer, writer and actors for a simple yet well arranged movie. The reverse story technique was a nice touch. Personally, I'm tired of those so-called mega-bucks movies made up of plenty of effects and little story to them. I found sympathy for the all the characters, particularly Paige, who went to lengths to do the things she had to do. The only thing I have some issues about is the ending, it could have totally been done full circle. I recommend Scalene for those who wish to leave the beaten path of Hollywood movies to enjoy a great piece of film-making.

The plot of this film is extremely ambitious and sometimes the director isn't up to par. I have a feeling he was going for noir, something hitchcockian, but it didn't quite work out that way.

I have to wonder, too, how this would look with a better budget. I enjoy the story, but it is also rather over the top and clearly pulling for your heart strings. Maybe a bit more kitchen sink realism would have helped.

I really like the ideas, but... like I said, it tries a little too hard in some areas. A bit overwrought. But good.

Regardless, a really riveting film. There was never a boring moment. Well, except for the scenes that were too drawn out. Other than that though, it was good.

A lot of people would not like this film, and I did find it flawed, but not for the same reason a lot of other people probably do. A scalene is triangle with three unequal sides. And this is three stories that are "unequal", not only in that they contradict each other somewhat in the famous "Rashomon" style, but they're also unequal in length. The mother's story runs about half an hour, the brain-damaged son's story is very brief, and story of the young sociology student who claims to have been raped takes up most of the movie. If one side of a scalene triangle exceeds the length of the other two combined, you obviously can't "close" the triangle. I'd have to go back and look at the running times of the three stories, but regardless the director chooses not to "close the triangle". The ending is ambiguous and leaves a lot of things unresolved and a lot of key questions unanswered.

Of course, this infuriates a lot of people who want a tidy resolution and clear answers. And they get upset with the director and start throwing around the word "pretentious", as if it's a worse crime to try unsuccessfully to do something new than to just do the same old thing. The style here is a little pretentious. The first story is told backwards, "Memento" style, which is a little too much, and the end also is a little bit pseudo-profound (a term I like better than pretentious). But ambiguity and moral ambiguity, the existence of multiple and differing points of view, no one really knowing everything, and a lot of things being left unresolved is actually very REALISTIC, much more so than the clear and tidy resolution of most movies. It's ironic that people today love "reality" shows where a clear narrative with often totally manufactured conflict and a tidy resolution or "closure" is imposed on reality. You can make reality fictional, but if you give a fictional movie like this too many aspects of reality, people get upset.

Anyway, the narrative structure of the movie I found interesting and even the ending didn't bother me. The first story is good (despite aping "Memento") and the disjointed second story genuinely seems to be "told by idiot" in its complete narrative confusion. The problem I had was the third story is simply not believable. The character of "Paige" is good, a naive young person trying to do the right thing and making bad decisions. But I didn't think ANYBODY would make some of the foolish and downright perplexing decisions she does. The performances of the actors playing the mother (Margo Martindale) and son are spot on, but the performance of Hanna Hall, who plays "Paige", is very uneven, great at times and quite awkward at others. I think a lot of it though is character and the direction, not the actress. Hall was great some years ago in "The Virgin Suicides" and she has had a more interesting career than most actresses. taking on a lot of offbeat roles and actually doing nudity even though she is not your typical Hollywood-style "hot", but looks much more like a normal girl (most Hollywood actresses who are "hot" seem to just coast on it and can be very boring as actresses). But I don't think any young actress could have been entirely successful in this infuriating role of a character who is much more realistic than usual, but who often makes completely unbelievable decisions.

This is flawed movie for sure, but that does not mean it is any way a bad one.

This Rashomon rip-off does alright with its first two stories, but falls on its ass with the third. Paige's story is so completely ridiculous, so far from the realm of reality, that it embarrasses the rest of the film to be a part of it. The movie does a pretty good job of manipulating emotions until then, but when the turn happens, everything becomes stupid, unbelievable, and ridiculous.

This is not a thriller, it's like a Lifetime movie that attempts to tug at your heartstrings but absolutely fails in the execution. You may experience the first 20 minutes of the film and be impressed, but it throws away all its credibility shortly after.