because you can't have too much entertainment...
December 2002

Parker Posey Can't Lose !

Reviewed: Personal Velocity: Three Portraits
Directed by: Rebecca Miller Starring: Kyra Sedgwick, Parker Posey, and Fairuza Balk.

Though it won the Grand Prize at Sundance back in January, Rebecca Miller's triptych of three women at emotional crossroads, Personal Velocity (subtitled: Three Portraits), underwhelms in the theater. It's essentially three films stitched together but like all well behaved collections, each piece somehow relates, corresponds or informs the others. The thing connecting the women here shouldn't be discussed in a review because it's only revealed late into the film, but the emotional connection of the stories is obvious. Each woman is on a journey, finding her way through life. She's discovering herself and rapidly coming into her own. Hence the title.

If you didn't know that this film was based on a book before entering the theater you'd figure it out on your own in about two seconds flat. Rebecca Miller is a talented writer, but as a director she proves only that she's a talented writer. She's so enamored of her own prose that she simply refuses to part with it on the road from book to cinema. Every single sequence in the film is narrated. Each and every time a character appears you'll hear a man tell you his or her background and all about their emotional baggage. The narrator, in a remarkable show of restraint, stops short of reciting the dialogue for the assembled actresses. With so much of their work already done for them by the omniscient voiceover the actresses aren't asked to contribute much to the proceedings.

DELIA:
Kyra Sedgwick has the misfortune of appearing in the film's most oppressive sequence. The voiceover is relentless in establishing her character, an oversexed and abused housewife. And once established, the voiceover continues to analyze her to death. When the voiceover finally ends and you think that Ms. Sedgwick will finally get to act, her theme song starts up. It's a laughably literal minded use of a song in a film. Rebecca Miller's screenplay seems to be all about underlining every notion about a character. It's like reading a paper with WORDS IN BOLD so you don't miss the meaning. Kyra could have probably stayed in her trailer for all the good it does her act. It's an uninvolving performance. But what else could it have really been when all of her interior thoughts are telegraphed for the audience before she has the chance to shape them in any way?

GRETA:
Just as I was about to find my own personal velocity by running screaming from the theater, the first story ended and suddenly, magically, the film was transformed. The middle segment, Greta, stars the inimitable Parker Posey as a book editor suddenly thrust towards a high profile lucrative career. The segment is so enjoyable and the film works so exceedingly well when Posey is onscreen that I immediately began searching for a reason. The film went from dreadful to delicious so immediately that I had to know why? I came up with three reasons. One: The portrait is about an editor and writing... and so the voiceover seemed more natural and less obtrusive. Two: Parker Posey is giving a great performance here. Though her interior thoughts are also overexplained, Posey manages to find harmonious notes to play in accordance with them. Greta is a richer character than she's usually asked to play but still fits nicely into Posey's trademark neurotic physicality. She's a hoot and also surprisingly touching by the end of the portrait. And finally, Three: This segment, Greta, is exceptionally funny. Cheap armchair psychology, which the film has in abundance, goes down much easier when it's played for laughs. Nearly everything about this segment works.

PAULA:
Fairuza Balk has the unenviable task of following Posey onto the screen. She acquits herself reasonably well here as an enigmatic girl who may or may not be on the run from her own life. Fairuza has always seemed to be a more capable actresses than her parts have demanded. And though the voiceover gives her considerably more breathing room than the other two women get, she's still playing a rather fuzzy character. But I was still thrilled for the reprieve I'd been given late in the film... the distinct impression that Rebecca Miller had given up trying to force me into her story and was allowing me to think for myself. This story, a duet between an emotionally needy girl and the teenage runaway she picks up alongside the road has less momentum than it should have to round out a film collection, but it's still well handled and blissfully less pushy than the first portrait.

I wished bitterly during the first and third portraits that Miller had jettisoned all but Greta and made just a short film. As such it might have been one of my favorites of the year. It saved the entire endeavor for me. But apart from the elevating work of Parker Posey, the film is nearly insufferable. Personal Velocity is basically the story of a book which became a film that still wanted to be a book... only one with pretty pictures. Because of Greta, I hope that Rebecca Miller eventually makes another effort as a director. But if and when she does, I pray that she realizes it's a FILM the next time she reaches for a CAMERA. Underline that please.

Jane: D Greta: B+ Paula: C- The film itself: D+

 

-Nathaniel

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