The Sundance Festival doesn't have a great track record in rewarding films that I, personally, want to see and a second strike against this entry was its Country/Soul music background - I'm one hundred per cent with Buddy Rich on this subject who, when about to undergo open heart surgery was asked if he was allergic to anything replied, 'yes, Country music' - so I was prepared for the worst especially the the UK reviews stressed the longeurs but it could have been worse. What it does have going for it is great acting particularly from the two leads Rip Torn and Dina Kurzon but helmer Ira Sachs seems to delight in doing everything exquisitely slowly so that at times it's like watching an Andy Warhol film with people instead of buildings. Ironically the kind of people who could theoretically take most from it are unlikely to see it; I mean those scores of middle-aged or downright old men, all completely unprepossessing who go to Russia - or the Phillipines - to virtually 'buy' a pretty wife thirty years younger than themselves then take her back to Kokomo or Leicester where, natch, she is going to be exposed to guys good-looking guys her own age: The trick, fellas, is NOT to bring them back but for YOU to settle in Moscow/Manila where she won't be tempted to stray. At least Kurzon is honest enough to admit that she lives better than anyone she knows - presumably she means her friends in Russia given that she knows many people in Rip Torn's circle who live as well if not better than she does - so she has no reason to complain but against this she apparently feels that she does have reason to pick up men in bars and sleep with her elderly lover's son. This is a movie with no answers and even the questions are only half questions; Alan James (Rip Torn) sees her only as a trophy - and the biggest question is WHY did he go to the trouble to import a girl from Russia when, as we see time and again, his fame/wealth make it easy for him to find young female company - with the inevitable result that she feels alienated and isolated, she also appears to be intelligent enough to realize that casual pick-ups are only demeaning and not long-term solutions. She also seems too intelligent to delude herself that her lover's son - who is, as he confesses, going through a bad patch in his marriage - will be prepared to go to the mat for her with a father whom he has never really liked. So that's it: Life's a bitch and then you die in twelve reels.
Review of Forty Shades of Blue
