Personal Velocity | AccessAtlanta

Personal Velocity

Parker Posey plays the ambitious Greta.

FILM FACTS

Starring: Kyra Sedgwick, Parker Posey and Fairuza Balk
Director: Rebecca Miller
Rating: R for language, intense sexuality and brief violence
Genre: Drama

Discuss this film | Official movie site

On DVD 5/27/03 (R) 86 minutes

Grade: A-

Verdict: More than up to speed.

By ELEANOR RINGEL GILLESPIE
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

When we meet them, the three women in "Personal Velocity" have been running on empty for some time. Each has been brought to the point of making a crucial decision — due as much to their inner conflicts as their external circumstances.

Taken from a slim volume of stories written by Rebecca Miller (who also directs), the movie is a riveting triptych of short films, each one a character study starring a criminally underused actor: Kyra Sedgwick, Parker Posey and Fairuza Balk.

Unlike such films as "Short Cuts" or more recently "Thirteen Conversations About One Thing," their stories do not interweave. The only thing they have in common is a freak car accident that each one hears — or experiences — at different times in their respective narratives. The repetition gives the movie a slightly eerie sense of the elusive inevitability of change.

First up is Delia (Sedgwick), who spent her high school years as the school slut because it was an easy way to be liked. Now married to an abusive husband, she finally gets the nerve to pack up the kids and get away. She eventually ends up at the home of a high school acquaintance — an outcast fat girl who now has a nice home and a nice husband. Next is Greta (Posey), who edits cookbooks at a Manhattan publishing house. She, too, has a nice husband (Tim Guinee). He's handsome, smart, sweet and low-key — especially compared with her nervous ambition, which is a manifestation of a childhood spent with her exceptionally critical father (Ron Leibman). A well-known and respected attorney, he dumped Greta's mother for a much younger woman.

When the Next Big Thing, i.e., a hot young author, asks her to edit his new book, Greta's professional life switches to the fast lane. It's not clear if her personal life will keep up. And it's Leibman who gives the movie its title. Told of her good fortune by his excited, eager-to-finally-please-him daughter, he hands her a characteristic back-handed compliment: "Well, everyone has their own personal velocity."

Finally, there's Paula, a punk runaway who was rescued from the streets a year ago by a good-hearted Jamaican. She's now pregnant with his child. Unable to decide what to do (she hasn't told the father-to-be yet), she goes back on the run, heading to upstate New York. That's where her mother and her boyfriend (with whom Paula has a rocky relationship) live. En route, she picks up a troubled adolescent, who's also on the run. In trying to help him, she may end up helping herself as well.

These are all very slight stories, but they are triply enriched by the acting, the dialogue and Miller's direction. Shot on digital video in 16 days, the movie has an impromptu yet meticulously planned-out style. Using a lot of stop-motion photography and hand- held close-ups, cinematographer Ellen Kuras (who's shot five Spike Lee movies) mirrors the restlessness of these women's lives. Another plus is the narration by John Ventimiglia (Artie Bucco from "The Sopranos"), whose wry, somewhat detached tone is the perfect vehicle for Miller's juicy and observant prose. (She's the daughter of playwright Arthur Miller.) Using a male voice is a good trick, too; it universalizes the stories, making them more than stuff about female trouble.

Not all the segments are equal. Balk's is the least interesting; it's more of a sketch than a complete story. Posey's is the best — so good that you wish it could've been fleshed out into a feature film. Sedgwick's is the most tantalizing. It's pretty much a showcase for her brilliantly layered portrayal. In one memorable moment, she's curled up in the common room of a women's shelter and a good-hearted staff member approaches her for a talk. Coolly gazing at the woman, Sedgwick says with casual venom, "What's it like to be good 24 hours a day?"

But then, all the actors are excellent — so much so that, if this were a bigger movie, there'd be major Oscar buzz floating around about their performances. Instead, we're given the pleasure of three exquisite boutique films whose impact is much larger than many movies five times their size.