I thoroughly enjoyed this movie, that is to say: until the last 3 minutes with a surprise shift that's supposed to knock you down flat and totally change your view on the entire story. Well, to me it seemed totally unnecessary and weird and utterly incomprehensible. Maybe I'm too dumb to grasp it, or too lazy to spend days puzzling about it, but to me it spoiled an otherwise very strong and solid movie and that seems like a pity.
The Box Collector is about a young, uncertain and unassertive guy who lives with his widowed mother in a big house and spends his days painting images of cardboard boxes (hence the movie's title). The mother is very dominating, to the point of castrating, crying hell over the male sex in general, apparently having had very bad experiences with her sons father. When a sexy young lady moves in next door and starts to flirt with the son, mother goes rampant. We then see the son, who gets a relationship with the pretty neighbor, slowly changing into an adult with a mind of his own, while the mother grows more and more insane with spite and jealousy.
I was very impressed with the overall acting. Margot Kidder as the deranged obsessive mother is totally convincing, at many times you just want to slap her in the face for all her chicaneries and for bullying her son. But at the same time Kidder succeeds in letting the frailty of old age and the terror of ultimately being left alone shine through.
Lyne Renee is, apart from a very good actress, a classic beauty and extremely sexy with a very strong charisma, even I (being gay!) found her very exciting and it's understandable that all the men lust after her while all the women see her as a threat.
Noah Segan has an appealing boyish look, with his sad eyes and serious and careful attitude. He plays the character of the son to perfection, he handles his mother with a convincing mix of patience and weariness, and makes it believable that Harry actually still loves her and feels some sort of (guilty) responsibility towards her.
Well, as I said earlier, the last 3 minutes of the movie should better be forgotten. The scene right before The Shift was very climactic and in my opinion could have been the starting-point of a more suitable conclusion of the movie. But who am I.... Since I simply rule out the last minutes, I can without any hesitation rank this movie 9 out of 10.
The Box Collector is about a young, uncertain and unassertive guy who lives with his widowed mother in a big house and spends his days painting images of cardboard boxes (hence the movie's title). The mother is very dominating, to the point of castrating, crying hell over the male sex in general, apparently having had very bad experiences with her sons father. When a sexy young lady moves in next door and starts to flirt with the son, mother goes rampant. We then see the son, who gets a relationship with the pretty neighbor, slowly changing into an adult with a mind of his own, while the mother grows more and more insane with spite and jealousy.
I was very impressed with the overall acting. Margot Kidder as the deranged obsessive mother is totally convincing, at many times you just want to slap her in the face for all her chicaneries and for bullying her son. But at the same time Kidder succeeds in letting the frailty of old age and the terror of ultimately being left alone shine through.
Lyne Renee is, apart from a very good actress, a classic beauty and extremely sexy with a very strong charisma, even I (being gay!) found her very exciting and it's understandable that all the men lust after her while all the women see her as a threat.
Noah Segan has an appealing boyish look, with his sad eyes and serious and careful attitude. He plays the character of the son to perfection, he handles his mother with a convincing mix of patience and weariness, and makes it believable that Harry actually still loves her and feels some sort of (guilty) responsibility towards her.
Well, as I said earlier, the last 3 minutes of the movie should better be forgotten. The scene right before The Shift was very climactic and in my opinion could have been the starting-point of a more suitable conclusion of the movie. But who am I.... Since I simply rule out the last minutes, I can without any hesitation rank this movie 9 out of 10.