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IMDb > A Slipping-Down Life (1999)
A Slipping-Down Life
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A Slipping-Down Life (1999) More at IMDbPro »

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A Slipping-Down Life (1999) -- A young woman becomes obsessed with a small-time North Carolina rock singer.
A Slipping-Down Life (1999) -- pre

Overview

User Rating:
5.8/10   564 votes
MOVIEmeter: ?
Down 44% in popularity this week. See rank & trends on IMDbPro.
Director:
Toni Kalem
Writers:
Michael Charles Hill (storyline consultant)
Toni Kalem (writer)
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Contact:
View company contact information for A Slipping-Down Life on IMDbPro.
Genre:
Drama | Music | Romance more
Tagline:
You think you're invisible. But I see you.
Plot:
A young woman becomes obsessed with a small-time North Carolina rock singer. full summary | add synopsis
Awards:
2 wins & 2 nominations more
User Comments:
The sheer truth of a young couple trying to escape their tyrannical roots to be reborn. more

Cast

  (Cast overview, first billed only)
Lili Taylor ... Evie Decker

Guy Pearce ... Drumstrings Casey

Irma P. Hall ... Clotelia
John Hawkes ... David Elliot

Veronica Cartwright ... Mrs. Casey

Marshall Bell ... Mr. Casey

Shawnee Smith ... Faye-Jean Lindsay

Sara Rue ... Violet

Bruno Kirby ... Kiddie Arcades Manager

Tom Bower ... Mr. Decker

Jo Ann Farabee ... Woman at Salon
Harv Morgan ... Dick St. Clair
Jason Russell Waller ... Audience Member #1

Lew Temple ... Audience Member #2
Jason Kavalewitz ... Young Sexband
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Additional Details

MPAA:
Rated R for language including sexual references.
Runtime:
111 min
Country:
USA
Language:
English
Color:
Color
Sound Mix:
Dolby | Dolby Digital
Certification:
Canada:14A | USA:R
Filming Locations:
Austin, Texas, USA more

Fun Stuff

Trivia:
Austin mayor, Kirk Watson makes a cameo in the drugstore scene. more
Goofs:
Continuity: In the wedding night scene Evie removes her corsage from her wrist and picks up her make up bag out of the suitcase. In the next shot her corsage is back on her wrist. Then she picks up her make up bag again. more
Quotes:
Violet: That's a diaper pin in her ear! more
Soundtrack:
Fuse more

FAQ

This FAQ is empty. Add the first question.
13 out of 16 people found the following comment useful:-
The sheer truth of a young couple trying to escape their tyrannical roots to be reborn., 20 May 2004
Author: John DeSando (jdesando@columbus.rr.com) from Columbus, Ohio

I am a fan of Flannery O'Connor's Southern gothic, the kind of short stories that define `grotesque,' where humor is slow, characters are off center, defects abound, and life is a series of stops along the born-again trail. First-time writer/director Toni Kalem (`Sopranos') channels O'Connor when a lady sitting in an early scene of `A Slipping Down Life' has a large wound on her knee, not featured but just there as the camera pans the group.

Besides minor grotesqueries, the major one consists of the name Evie Decker (Lili Taylor, `Casa De Los Babys') inversely carves on her forehead with broken glass: `Drumstrings. ' `Drum' Casey (Guy Pearce, `Memento') is a soulful country singer catching wallflower Evie's fancy, implausibly marrying her, and along with her going through a few hells on the road to rebirth. The thirteen original songs Pearce sings are melancholic country, all the more impressive because of his singing.

The road is littered with Southern stereotypes (O'Connor never allowed those types in her very original stories) like Clotelia (Irma P. Hall, `Lady Killers'), whose black housekeeper is a true throwback to unoriginal Hollywood typing of the early 20th century. Add Drum's rube family members and slutty Faye-Jean Lindsay (Shawnee Smith) as an oversexed, overacting girl friend and you have an inexperienced director ignoring the nuances of Anne Tyler's novel, from which Kalem adapted.

But `A Slipping Down Life' belongs to Lili Taylor, who gives us a sympathetic young virgin, lovingly attached to her introverted widower father and doggedly determined to make something of Drum's talent and her life. Her underplayed demeanor and plain looks offset the grotesque mark on her forehead; her strength of character ("I've never backed down on anything in my life") serves further to distance her from the usual Southern hicks so popular in immature cinema.

In his `Autobiography,' W.B. Yeats described the link between self and happiness and renewal so much a part of this film's power: `I think that all happiness depends on the energy to assume the mask of some other self; that all joyous or creative life is a rebirth as something not oneself, something which has no memory and is created in a moment and perpetually renewed.'

Although the story brings no surprises and repeats some Southern chestnuts, the film ultimately succeeds because of the principals' considerable acting talent and the sheer truth of a young couple trying to escape their tyrannical roots to be reborn.

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the ending yummysweet2
The Book vs. The Movie ***SPOILERS lizmart
sounds like Vast jojopely
Help! How can I watch this in the UK? lyemail
Evie is crazy! bizy
Drum's Character (SPOILERS, possibly) Taffybird
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