Blue Car (2002)

How DARE They?
American Beauty - NOT even close, NO comparison. American Beauty, with K. Spacey and A. Benning is so much more entertaining, unpredictable, and, did I say ENTERTAINING.

I agree the acting in Blue Car is flawless, the one star is for the false expenctancy the false advertising gave me, so as to dissappoint me. If marketers hadn't done that, who knows what perspective I would have come from, but they did, and so I came out disappointed, felt like my time was wasted watching a movie about a poor kid who gets betrayed over and over, first by her own MOTHER, father, then baby sister, then friend, and then.....the only thing (in her perspective) she has left in her life betrays her, her beloved and entrusted teacher - an utter dissapointment and disenchantment. But - did this break her? Ah no my friends, just the opposite! This, actually is the daybreak of her life, for this betrayal shows anyone watching, what Meg had all along, what no one can take away from her, what stays inact no matter what.

Despite having NO ONE, she manages to keep herself. How? It could be the poetry. It could have been the false hope before all the betrayals, but, one thing is for certain, the kid's gonna need lotsa shrink work when she grows up. Her resilience shines through during her poetry reading - and that resilience manifest - the daybreak - THAT *IS* a happy ending, people. This movie does have a happy ending. Too bad even people who gave it 4 or 5 stars don't see it. Too bad.

Fantastic, till the final fifteen minutes.
Blue Car (Karen Moncrieff, 2002)

You know, it took me all of five minutes to figure out where Blue Car was going. It's a testament to Karen Moncrieff's film that, for the most part, that didn't diminish my enjoyment of it in the slightest.

Meg Denning (The Woods beauty Agnes Bruckner) is a troubled high school student, pulling farther and farther away from her mother after her parents' divorce. She turns to her English teacher, Mr. Auster (David Strathairn), who encourages her to enter a nationwide poetry competition for high school students. When she wins the first round, she becomes obsessed with finding a way to get to the nationals in Florida without help from her mother (from whom she's keeping her victory) or her teacher (she doesn't want to impose).

Moncrieff's script starts dropping hints that this won't be Dead Poets' Society pretty quickly once the mise-en-scene is set, and the main suspense in the film metamorphoses from "will it happen?" to "when's it going to happen?". Once we get to the Big Reveal(tm), the film does slip a bit, as the script goes down the most predictable possible pathway, and we end up with just another object lesson in Why It's Bad To Do The Things your Parents Warned You About. Still, it doesn't come off completely cheesy, and that's something. The pleasure of the ride was worth the suffering. And, you know, it's Agnes Bruckner. Which should be enough for most red-blooded males. *** ½

Traveling Down A Long, Lonesome Highway
Blue Car is no chuckle fest, this much is certain, but in its chilling realism, confident pacing, and expert acting is a sadness that has the exquisite beauty of truth, human truth. This movie does not have characters, it has people. Some you love, some you feel sorry for, some you despise; all are as actual as the last clerk who gave you change.

Meg, Agnes Bruckner, would seem to have more than enough dysfunction in her life to satisfy the minimum daily angst requirement of a high school student. Her divorced mother has both hands gripped firmly on the ledge and oscillates between neglect and rude intrusiveness. Her father is virtually out of the picture. Worse still, she is charged with the care of her mentally imbalanced younger sister, something between a chore and a trial.

Smart and sensitive, Meg is disconnected, with little in life to rely on. When her English teacher takes an interest in her poetry, and her, it introduces an unprecedented ray of hope into her life. Like Agnes Bruckner, who gives a flawless performance that is bravely open and giving, David Strathairn's performance as her teacher, Mr. Auster, is practically a master's class in acting.

Auster is no mere lech or predator; he is a weakling and emotional cripple who lives in a world where bad faith is revealed in layers. Too cowardly to seduce Meg, he must create an environment where she drifts towards him naturally. Because she is already so damaged, this process is painful to witness.

People never stop finding ways to betray and disappoint Meg, and the more it happens, the more tightly she clutches her book of poems, her trip to Florida, and the tender support of Mr. Auster, the one person who believes in her. But that is the nature of the blues. You don't get the blues when you lose something you don't care about. You get the blues when the only thing you have left, the one thing you knew you could trust and rely on, turns out to be a pathetic lie. How you respond determines whether you get the blues, or they get you.

Meg is a very brave young woman who knows more than she should have to know at such a tender age. Writer and director Karen Moncrieff is to be saluted for this gem.