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November 8, 2006

Tuesday was the second evening in a row on which I went to the AFI expecting to go to a screening and a party and found myself simply uninterested in the party part. Monday night, it was a doc on Rwanda that left me introspective and uninterested in the schmooze. This time, it was Karen Moncrieff.

Moncrieff came to my attention four years ago when Miramax (the Weinstein version) rolled out one of their Toronto films, Blue Car, with little fanfare. One of a half dozen or so films they were showing a couple of weeks before Toronto, I went along for the ride. And while I found all kinds of flaws with the film, I found that as each day passed, I was thinking about Blue Car more and more, as I thought of some of the bigger titles less and less.

The simple core of the movie was a young girl coming of age, having trouble with her mom, and finding comfort in the attention of her teacher, who was supporting her interest in poetry while others looked past her. A bit of an indie stereotype, no? But there was something about how Moncrieff shot it, about the raw energy of the performances she got, not only from the always sublime David Strathairn, but from veteran TV actress Margaret Colin and newcomer Agnes Bruckner.

Miramax really couldn't seem to make up its mind about whether what it had in Blue Car was an underdog surprise or a dump-it-and-DVD-it piece of product. The answer would come in a May release that never cracked the 30 screen mark. It wasn't in bad company, as the studio dumped Jet Lag and Buffalo Soldiers in the same summer. (Ironically, the director of Jet Lag, another woman director, also has her new film at this year's AFI Fest.)

I had no idea what I was walking into when I got to the AFI premiere of Moncrieff's new film, The Dead Girl. I knew it was a First Look film. I knew I liked Moncrieff's work. And I knew that I really wasn't all that keen to go to the theater.

But what I ran into was a reminder and an extension of my admiration of Moncrieff. It is no exaggeration to say, I think, that she may be the next Sayles, though her canvas seems to be the lives of modern women and not New Jersey.

I can't say that The Dead Girl is the best film I've seen this year or an all-time classic. But it is an absolute can't miss. It is about people we have seen a million times in movies before… but never this gently and realistically rendered.

The over-arching story is of a mysterious death, how it affects those who come in contact with the body, and ultimately, how this life came to be lost. It is a complex journey and feeling the pieces come together is a big part of the experience. So I will leave it there.

Moncrieff, who also wrote the original screenplay, has an ensemble of 12 major characters, all of who are given fairly full voice. They all have arc. They all breathe like real people. And in their embodiment, at least six of the performances are singular achievements in careers that already have a number of landmarks.

It is impossible to say which performance is the best. And I do not want to suggest that the six performances that I am not focusing on here are inferior. They aren't. But as good as Toni Collette is here, for instance, we have seen her pull off this magic trick. (In her case, in Japanese Story).

What you have never seen is Brittany Murphy giving a performance without any of her familiar acting tools. You can figure out it's her, but just barely. And amazingly, we've seen her play this character before… just never this raw and real.

I still love the Mary Beth Hurt of Chilly Scenes of Winter, Garp and others. And we have seen her risk it all in tough, aging roles before. But never like this performance. As the wife of a man who man or may not be a murderer, her pain is like the purr of a kitten in our cinematic lap. It is constant and seductive. Yet, it is brutally honest. And the choices this character is faced with are extreme, yet offered in a performance of shocking subtlety.

Marcia Gay Harden is often brilliant. But again, here, she works without any net. It is not insignificant that she was also in John Sayles' Casa de los Babys, where her performance felt more familiar. In fact, part of the charm of that film was seeing all of these familiar actresses bounce their styles against each other in a film with serious issues and subtext. But here, Harden reached something more sublime. She is a mother who has lost her child, even before she really loses her child. And she is trying to fill in the blanks of the last few years, desperate but forced to keep her wits. And like many of the other performances, not only is there not a false note, but you don't feel like anyone is even trying to hit any particular notes.

Kerry Washington is almost unrecognizable as a drug addict and hooker who is also realizing a loss. The role, as written, is unusually complex. And Washington gives the performance of her career, never showing off, never cheating, never selling her beauty or her acting skills… just being. And again, like Murphy, she does this is a role that could be - if not written and performed so beautifully - a classic movie stereotype.

Piper Laurie is almost unrecognizable as a raging, angry, sick old woman. But that voice always brings her in focus. Still, she is raw and relentless and, again, like other actors in this films, gives up her armor. She can use that voice more slickly than The Hustler's cue. But she doesn't. And she doesn't protect her character and offer her likeability. The result is another haunting performance.

And Rose Byrne, playing almost the entire time in tight close-ups, is a revelation. That magic you might have noticed (I did) around the edges of her performance in Troy is in full bloom here.

There are also great moments from Mary Steenburgen, a weirdly non-charismatic charisma from James Franco, solid work from Nick Searcy, and a smart, somewhat more familiar turn from Giovanni Ribisi which reminds me of how much I miss seeing him in more movies these days.

But there is - I guess you noticed - a theme in all the performances. Moncrieff stripped them all raw, which is a place many of these actors haven't been since becoming famous. I don't know how much came from the script, how much from the thrill of opportunity (when asked why she did the film, Harden said dryly, "Not to facilitate the plot… not to facilitate the husband (snore)… a chance to drive your own car…"), and how much came from Moncreiff demanded more than any director had demanded in a while.

But regardless, this film achieves what many festival indies - like both Rodrigo Garcia "women's films" - have tried to do. It is raw and real and rangy and about important things in the lives of women, yet it never feels like it is an exercise or aware of what it is trying to be. It just is. It is complex, but not showing off. It is raw, but the performances are diamond tight. It is indie, but it never feels like something that belonged on HBO.

And I think what made me not want to go celebrate with a drink and some chatter was that it reminded me just how much amazing talent it out there and how much real talent is shined like a gemstone and made into studio fodder when there is something so much more interesting just waiting to break out. It's sad, really. But then again, this movie got made.

And First Look, under Henry Winterstern, deserves a great deal of respect for being there. Moncrieff indicated in her remarks that Winterstern was the first person to put money into the project and he has been there since, now distributing. Winterstern and Ruth Vitale have delivered this film and The Proposition into theaters this year and for any true indie, that one-two alone is impressive enough to be given loud accolades.

I really should talk to Ms. Moncrieff, who opened the premiere with an appearance by her one-year-old daughter on this night, her birthday. I normally would wait until I had before writing about the film. But I will be happy to write again. And the experience tonight was more than "how the movie got made." Like the film itself, it was somehow much more to me than the sum of its parts. And these days in the Movie City, that is a consummation devoutly to be wished.

E Me.

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