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A teacher's interest in a talented student takes a disastrous turn.
Grade: D+
Verdict: Crashes.
By ELEANOR RINGEL GILLESPIE
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A low-budget, independently made coming-of-age story, done by a first-time director (female -- bonus points!) and laced with sexual taboos and adolescent unhappiness, "Blue Car" is one of those movies that movie reviewers usually adopt as a cause. We "erudite"and "sophisticated" critics are expected to coax into open-mindedness regular moviegoers who'd otherwise be appalled by its content.
But I didn't like "Blue Car," and the only thing I found appalling is how blatantly predicable and pseudo-daring the supposedly appalling stuff is.
The title refers the car 16-year-old Meg (Agnes Bruckner) watched her father drive away in when he abandoned her, her mother (Margaret Colin) and her little sister (Regan Arnold). Suddenly plunged into the world of sole wage-earner, Mom is distracted and harried. Little sis is getting off on mutilating herself. No wonder Meg starts writing poems like "The Memory of Trees," in which she refers to herself as "rot." Still, that's better than most teens can do, and her English teacher, Mr. Auster (David Strathairn), takes an interest, volunteering to coach her at lunch so she can compete in a national poetry contest. (That Auster is also one of the judges brings up some ethical questions, but that's not the kind of ethics this film is interested in.)
Meg sorely needs some kind of male figure in her life and Auster needs . . . well, what he needs is the picture's point.
Director Karen Moncrieff, who moved behind the camera after years in soaps and TV movies, also wrote the screenplay, which won her the prestigious Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences 1998 Nicholl Screenwriting Fellowship. It is the sort of script that gets noticed more for its sexual themes than its lyricism. More importantly, it's the sort of script that gets you in film festivals.
Give Moncrieff credit for making the movie she intended and for drawing such a strong performance from Bruckner, whose experience has mostly been in television. But the critical acclaim seems a little overdone, as if everyone had been looking to get behind something -- anything -- with female themes.
However, it's Strathairn who most merits the kudos. Having played everyone from a coal miner ("Matewan") to a baseball pitcher ("Eight Men Out") to a war corespondent ("Harrison's Flowers"), he's the same sort of multi-use character actor as recent Oscar winner Chris Cooper. Strathairn brings his quiet charisma and expertise to any film he's in and his gently measured, carefully calibrated performance, is "Blue Car's" saving grace.
