Rating: 
Summary: A Tough but Ultimately Radiant Little Film
Review: MORVERN CALLER is an example of films that have such an idiosyncratic flavor that much attention and intelligence AND patience is required of the viewer. Because of the technique of direction and cinematography and because the Scottish brogues used by the cast are all thick and dark and a bit plodding, the first fifteen minutes of the film may lose it audience. But struggle a while and the rewards are plentiful.The superb Samantha Morton plays the title role, a poor, grocery store worker in dankest Scotland whose boyfriend has committed suicide as the film opens. It is Christmas and Morvern has no idea of how to cope until she notices his computer screen with the statement READ ME. Apparently her dead boyfriend had just completed his first novel, instructing Morvern to send it to the publisher. In a trance Morvern changes the name of the author to her own name, prints out the novel and sends it off to the London publisher. While she gets rid of the body she takes some cash and a credit card and discovers she has enough money to take a holiday with her friend Lana. After some reactive partying to stem her disillusionment, she convinces Lana to take a holiday to Spain with her. We move from dark (yet luminously atmospheric) Scotland to the bright madness of Spain. There the two friends separate as Lana longs to go back home, finding the party over. Morvern calls the publisher who comes to meet her in Spain because they have elected to publish "her" book for a large sum. Morvern returns to her home a changed person, a woman who has taken risks and continues (and will continue) to explore life one day at a time. As stated before, much of the story in dialogue is lost because it is simply un-understandable. Yet Samantha Morton really does not need words to create a character: her face, body, and inner light illuminate the screen. The film is not an easy one, but its rewards are phenomenal. Take the time.
Rating: 
Summary: before you go to sleep my baby...
Review: Never mind these other people who did not enjoy this film, they're missing some vital piece of their brains. I don't know what this piece of brain is called, but it's the part that allows you to let go of reality for a short time an enjoy something that you never new existed. The movie is beautiful, I saw it three times in the theater, and it also has the most amazing soundtrack full of wonderful music that you NEED to hear. It's not a movie for the faint of heart, but rather for those full of heart.
Rating: 
Summary: Empty lives, and that's the good part.
Review: No text. No subtext. No dialogue the first 15 minutes. Not because it's adventurous art. But because script and characters have nothing to say. This is dramatized when the characters do speak: accents are so heavy, words are unintelligible. No story. No plot. No conflict. No goals. No obstacles. Just. Aimless people. Aimless lives. Aimless story. About emotional nomads. Credit where due: during the opening the buzz generated by blinking Christmas lights is a terrific effect. But which the art-school cinematography destroys. Lots of little bugs and one bull. More worthy of compassion than the characters. Maybe symbolic of innocence the characters never had. Amoral characters. One casually cuts up a dead body. The other will have sex with anyone. Characters too stupid even to make it onto Jay Leno's "Jaywalking" sidewalk interviews. Which is at least funny and compassionate. In my youth, Ibiza, where some scenes take place, was a hip place. Now it's been developed and made the playground for bumptious kids--who probably can't spell "college"--on international and year-round spring break. Hollywood admits films don't need a happy ending. Screenwriting books say you can tell people life is sad, tough, demanding, even cruel. But you may not tell viewers life is s--t. This movie comes pretty close. It ends playing The Mamas and Papas' great recording, "Dedicated to the One I Love." I'd buy that CD (or LP), not this movie ticket.
Rating: 
Summary: Ugh, hated the story -but good acting
Review: The acting was good-the story was not. It was depressing, strange, and uninteresting. I like dpressing and strange, but not when it's combined with a bad story. I think some people might enjoy it in their own way-I just can't recommend it though. The stars are for the acting.
Rating:
Summary: How you you define art?
Review: There is no answer to the above question, however if you want an example of it, then watch this film. Why? Because it provokes a reaction through the display of a story. Sure, I like a Hollywood comedy/action/horror plot as much as the next guy, but it doesn't provoke reaction. Just popcorn for the brain.
This is fresh Spanish paella washed down with a good Scottish ale. Satisfying to see great films coming out of Scotland, and reflecting some of the dismal reality I experienced there throughout my childhood. I could relate completely to their lives, but at the same time gripped by the plot. What was she thinking? How could she do that? WHY WON'T SHE TELL SOMEONE?
However, I've never experienced such pain and don't know how I would deal with it. This movie starts to convey some of her anguish.
I think jumping from a soft scene into hardcore gabber is very apt, because that's what's happening in her mind. Gentle internal weeping, to outright anger and rage at her boyfriend; how could you leave me if you loved me? I think the body dismemberment is really a revenge act against him.
For the naysayers, ask yourself what it is you really didn't like? The movie, or your own thoughts about the movie... Took a star off, as I noticed the audio difficulties and a couple of other mistakes.
Rating: 
Summary: Intriguing, polarizing film
Review: There's a lot to like about this film.... it has amazing sound design (maybe the best I've come across since _Requiem for a Dream_) and is terrifically visually inventive (color and framing choices are occasionally flamboyant but more often they are just enough askew so you are always seeing things afresh). Lynne Ramsay is evidently a director to watch, and is cut from the same cloth as Lynch and Aronofsky. But, and its going to be a big "but" for a lot of people, the story drifts along and is in some sense *about* drift and ennui. If that doesn't sound like your sort of thing then this movie probably won't be. But if you are interested in the technical aspects of film-making or enjoy the slightly somnabulent state one sometimes enters at art galleries and museums then _Morvern Callar_ is definitely worth seeing.
Rating:
Summary: LOSER
Review: This is 93 minutes of your life wasted. Unless, of course, you're interested in a nobody who is going nowhere and doing nothing with her life. Much of the dialogue cannot even be understood. You can file it under "art." I'd put an "f" in front of it instead.
Rating:
Summary: Unique film
Review: This is an "unusual" film, and is not for folks who need to "understand" everything, or have an explanation to everything that occurs in a film. From the very beginning, you know this is not your typical Hollywood type film. The film opens with closeup shot of a woman (Morvern) lying in a dark room, with her face illuminated by the rhythmic flash of a reddish light nearby. At first one assumes she's in bed, and that she is in some seedy hotel, or else in a sketchy neighborhood full of bars, etc. But as the camera pulls back, we see that she's actually lying on her apartment floor, caressing the body of her apparently dead boyfriend, as the Christmas tree lights flash in the background. Over the next few days, we see how she deals (and in some ways doesn't deal) with his death. Her boyfriend had put a new screensaver on his PC that says "READ ME". It directs her to his suicide note, where he doesn't offer any insight as to why he killed himself, but says that he loves her, and oh yeah, that the novel he was working on can be found on the disk in the drawer, and that the novel is "for her". We don't see many other pivotal characters in the film, except for Morvern's close friend from her supermarket job. Morvern never tells her friend about her boyfriend's suicide, and instead simply tells her that he "left her". Morvern submits her boyfriend's novel to a publishing company in London, and waits to hear back from them. In the meantime, Morvern goes about her day-to-day life, which basically consists of a menial job at a depressing supermarket in some small coastal town in Scotland, and partying during the evening. The party scenes are really well done. You can't just throw together a bunch of colored lights, loud music and some actors drinking alcohol, and think you're going to provide a real sense of the partying experience across to the audience. But this director did an excellent job, as well as the writer, by using lots of clipped language/bits of conversations, which is exactly how you hear things at a party, especially once you're a bit drunk. And the camera work and the lighting are also done to perfection in these scenes. Morvern invites her friend to go with her to Spain (somewhere on the southern coast I guess), for vacation. This trip also provides us with some great scenes, as the girls get lost one night on the open road in the middle of two towns, and another time they happen upon a small town in the midst of a local religious street festival. Again, there is lots of endless partying, and some freewheeling sexcapades during their trip to Spain. Both girls don't seem to have much else going on in their lives. While in Spain, Morvern learns that the publisher is interested in "her" book, and that they'd like to fly to Spain to see her. Once Morvern meets with them, she learns that they are prepared to give her 100,000 pounds for the rights to the story. Naturally Morvern is quite thrilled with this. She returns home a few weeks later, and lo and behold, there is her check in the mail. But she doesn't seem to have any lofty plans for the money, other than to go back to Spain and have some more "fun". The film ends in Spain, with an image of a lonely, directionless Morvern. It's actually quite cool how the director did it, and the song playing in the background is so perfect for the particular scene. While this movie certainly isn't uplifting, I appreciate the artistic aspects of it.
Rating:
Summary: my favourite movie
Review: this is my favourite movie, and i've seen a lot of movies. not for everyone though i guess (a bit morbid)
Rating:
Summary: Watching a person
Review: This is not the best film ever, and it certainly is going to bore some people. However, it's a remarkable piece of work outside Hollywood's beaten paths. The point is to *show* us a woman, to leave us with a many-colored, personal view of her, simply by close, intelligent observation through the camera. The film does not sacrifice to plot, and it especially does not sacrifice to text. It uses the classical means of film, but scoured of the accommodations films make for those two elements TV has trained us to see as central - story and speech. There is little story - Morvern wakes up on Dec. 24 to find her live-in boyfriend (Tom?) dead by suicide, mourns him privately, then goes out for Christmas eve and explains to her best friend, Lana, that Tom has left for some other country. She later avoids the troubles of dealing with authorities by cutting up the body and burying the parts in the heath outside Glasgow. She then sends Tom's manuscript novel to a publisher, as instructed, but under her own name. The manuscript is accepted, and she takes the money Tom had left for his funeral to go with Lana on a late-winter vacation in Spain. By keeping her mouth shut at the right moments, she manages to get a hundred-thousand-pound advance for the novel. She finds the check in the mail when she comes back home. She immediately sets out on another trip outside the UK (we don't know where), with no intention of coming back. Lana refuses to come, so we leave Morvern alone waiting for the train out of Glasgow. Of course she knows that all the publisher will get for its money is the manuscript it already has. There will me no rewrites, no proof corrections, no interviews and no next novel. Better be out of reach. There is even less talk (that can be understood) - When not at work Morvern lives by emotions, and finds them in party environments. Most speech is drowned by the noise, and what comes through is the kind of short phrases you'd exchange in passing during such a party - except that a lot of it will be lost on you if you're not Glaswegian. The film aims a joke at viewers that illuminates the theme. Lana says "pal" is a synonym for "neighbor". Much later, in Spain, she sets out to reveal to Morvern that she slept with Tom while he lived with Morvern: "We were pals." While she's trying to clarify, Morvern tries to cut her off: "Tom is dead." Of course, Lana understands: "That's all water under the bridge". File under Important Communications with Best Friend. What you're left with (as exemplified by other reports here) is a feeling for who Morvern is. I was especially struck by her capacity to find her footing and her simple, unemotional, determination when she has a goal in mind. The word that came to mind was "survivor", but *not* in the sense of "survivor to the suicide of her boyfriend". How did I come to feel this? By watching Morvern, and that's the whole point of Ramsay's method. You get a lot for your 97 minutes of viewing, but it's not plot and it's not talk. It's a person.
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