dhboylan2000 Reviews

P.S. (2004)

If you like to be told a story, here it is!

[9/10 · 16 October 2004]

p.s.(lower case!) is the title of an fine independent film that casts Laura Linney as a thirty-something Columbia University School of Fine Arts admissions officer who gets into a relationship with an admissions candidate played by Topher Grace, who is 15 or so years younger than she is. Their days together and the complications following make up this film. There is an ex-husband, her mother on Long Island, her difficult brother and the best friend from California (a show-stopper performance by Marcia Gay Hardin)--all in there to complicate the story. The film is fun, a good story, well-acted, a great star-turn by Laura Linney and more proof that Dylan Kidd is a fine director.

Special note should be made of Laura Linney and the exceptional nuances she brings to the character she plays. She shows that she has one of the best acting abilities out there today--a kind of intuitive ability to inhabit a role from the inside and be free with it. Her chemistry with Topher Grace was special, though it must be said that some of this should be credited to his abilities and auger well for his future in film.

Any questions about Laura Linney, please return to You Can Count On Me and see it or see it again! Okay?

King of the Corner (2004)

Peter Reigert's shows us so much of a man's search for meaning

[9/10 · 16 October 2004]

King of the Corner is a gift to us from a group of wonderfully talented actors (Eli Wallach, Isabella Rossellini, Rita Moreno, Peter Reigert and more) who are brought together by Peter Reigert to tell this story of a man coming apart at the seams. Leo is under pressure by his ailing dad, by a younger man competing for his job, by a wife unhappy with the marriage, by a difficult teenage daughter and by a sense of life losing all meaning. With a very healthy mix of humor and warmth, Leo lives the minutes and hours of his life fully and suffers his way forward in a way that we want to go with him and learn and live our way forward. This is a highly recommended film for everybody who wants to follow the human condition through the story of one man and his struggles.