Home Media Magazine - January 6-12, 2008 - (Page 24) REVIEWS I THE WAR BRIDE Street 1/15 Questar, Drama, $14.99 DVD, NR. Stars Anna Friel, Brenda Fricker, Molly Parker, Aden Young. www.homemediamagazine.com T he gaps that often exist between expectation and reality serve as the foundation for The War Bride, the gripping story of a woman struggling to build a new life for herself after fleeing the horrors of World War II. A radiant Friel stars as Lily, a British girl who sets off with her friends to win the heart of a soldier boy. She eventually meets and marries a Canadian named Charlie, who paints a rosy picture of life on the farm back home. When Charlie returns to the front lines, she is sent with their young daughter to live in Canada and await his return. Lily expects to live at a sprawling ranch like in a John Wayne movie, but instead arrives at a dreary little farm with his dreary family, who take an immediate dislike to her and resent the disruption to their routine she represents. But Lily is tougher than she looks, and bears the scars of war to prove it. This simple theme of overcoming adversity plays out effectively in a bittersweet family drama, casting an emotional toil that emanates from the screen. Just as Lily comes to the realization her fleeting marriage is slipping away, Charlie returns, emotionally drained by his experiences. With the war over, Lily must once again find the inner strength to redefine her existence. This DVD is well timed to take advantage of Friel’s starring turn on the new TV series “Pushing Daisies.” Parker (“Deadwood”) and Fricker (Oscar winner for My Left Foot) cast just the right notes as her husband’s family, not fully supportive of her marriage, but not so cold as to throw her out, either. – John Latchem I NIAGARA MOTEL Prebook 1/8; Street 2/5 Allumination, Comedy, $29.98 DVD, NR. Stars Craig Ferguson, Anna Friel, Kevin Pollak, Caroline Dhavernas, Wendy Crewson. C an there be such a thing as a depressing comedy? Niagara Motel, based on the “Suburban Motel” series of plays by George F. Walker, certainly fits that description. Here’s a dark comedy snuggling the border between the twisted and the absurd, populated with a breed of hard luck losers typically relegated to enjoying a cigarette in a dank shadow. The screenplay provides so little joy that the filmmakers resort to an annoying musical score to try to lighten the tone. The movie interweaves the stories of dis- parate residents at a run-down motel near Niagara Falls. That they gravitated toward this black hole of the downtrodden says enough about them. Most seek a change in their lives, or the beginning of something bigger. But this certainly isn’t where they want to be. One look at the spaced-out, drunkard manager, played by the understated Ferguson, is more than enough of an incentive to maintain a transitory acquaintance with the place. Individual performances stand out. Crewson is quite good as a woman who dabbles in prostitution when her husband struggles to find a new job. Dhavernas shines as a young waitress at the local café whose affections are torn between a Mormon interloper, her ex-lover and her agent (Pollak), who casually pushes her toward filming pornography. Most notable is Friel as a drug addict hoping to reclaim her daughter from a foster home. Her performance, filled with rage, despair and bitterness, is nearly 180 degrees from her turn as the quiet optimist in The War Bride. The bizarre mix of characters sets up various plot threads of situational humor. None of them really pay off, except to remind us to take stock of what we have in our lives, and not what we’re missing. – John Latchem I WHEN A MAN FALLS Prebook 1/8; Street 2/5 Universal/Screen Media, Drama, $24.98 DVD, ‘R’ for some violent content. Stars Sharon Stone, Timothy Hutton, Pruitt Taylor Vince, Dylan Baker. S 24 haron Stone sheds her customary femme fatale persona for a decidedly unglamorous turn as a depressed woman whose marriage is disintegrating in When a Man Falls (also known as Desires of a Housewife), a smart, dreamy, multilayered film in which the stories of three men who went to high school together dovetail tragically. Gary (Hutton) is a disillusioned architect, tired of his job and his marriage and dallying with booze and pills. Bill (Baker) is the night janitor at the office, an old classmate who is just this side of catatonic. And Travis (Vince) is the third classmate, rendered despondent as the result of a mysterious, years-ago accident. Travis and Gary try to renew their friendship in the face of the creeping depression that threatens to overtake both of them. At the same time, Bill finds an instructional tape about lucid dreaming and sets about imagining the life he is incapable of living. Stone, sans makeup and hair, is circling the drain as a woman who finds herself living a life without love or meaning. When a Man Falls is a small picture that packs a bit of a punch. The cast finds the painful and awkward humor in recognizable moments, but the film is much more Greek tragedy than comedy. Those interested in films with intertwined stories, such as Crash and Babel, will find much to like here. – Anne Sherber Home Media Magazine January 6–12, 2008 http://www.homemediamagazine.com
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