Miranda

Rating:
Summary: Another lost Ricci
Review: There I stood in the video store, holding this DVD, thinking - "A film with John Hurt and Christina Ricci!". Hurt is one of my all time favorite actors, Ricci is one I am paying more and more attention to. Yet, I had never heard of this film and the DVD cover made it seem like a low budget made-for-video affair. Most importantly, there was no indication of its format - was it panned and scanned? Should I risk renting it, I wondered? Will I end up expelling it from the player in irritation?

I took a chance on it and carted it home, only to be baffled once again at the plunge of excellent films into obscurity. Perhaps it has something to do with Ricci. She not only plays a lost character in the film, she seems to get lost - on more than one occasion - in the dusty corners of the video store. As to why that is, I cannot imagine.

First, worry not - it is widescreen. Beyond that, it's a good film with brilliant actors. It's a comedy, a thriller and a love story with some very dark moments. Ricci stars as Miranda, John Sim plays an eccentrically naive librarian who falls for her, Kyle Mclachlan is a creepy psycho-businessman and John Hurt is her...well, you'll see. I only wish Hurt's role had been developed further.

The humour is off beat, and the pacing is quite slow. It didn't always resonate with me and did not fully captivate my attention. Yet at the end - I wanted to see it again.

As with all eccentric films, it is hard to reccomend it without reservations. The humour might hit you right in the funny bone, or might perpetually fall just slightly off mark. Nevertheless, if you like something different than your average Hollywood fare, you should give this a look.

I suppose I've answered my own question about it's obscurity. It doesn't fit neatly in any genre and it's too offbeat. I hope that for some these very qualities will serve as a reccomendation.

Rating:
Summary: Not Ms. Ricci's finest work
Review: There is nothing terribly wrong with any of the performances. The script provides the big letdown in this film.

There is not a single memorable scene in this film, that is unless you are a foot fetishist. There is a scene featuring extreme close-ups of Christina Ricci's bare feet and soles that looks like something straight out of the Quentin Tarantino school of directing.

Rating:
Summary: "Riccing" For It
Review: There's nothing incredibly gripping about MIRANDA, but there's nothing incredible boring either. The story about a con woman (the ever-budding Christina Ricci) finding love at the wrong time in her life is well-paced enough to keep one's interest, but the film isn't compelling enough to be that memorable.

Frank, a librarian kicking the doldrums by falling in love with the winning Ricci, flips head-over-heels once he finds out that he actually has a chance with the dressed-down Miranda (Ricci). Boy meets girl. Girl initially shuns boy. Girl becomes bored in the moments spent between one con job to the next. Girl gives in to boy's wishes for sex. Girl shuns boy (again). Boy goes after girl. Girl nearly gets boy muscled out of town. Boy persists. Girl eventually realizes the error of her ways and runs away with boy. The end.

Ricci is a bit of a breakout here, as she gravitates easily between the dowdy American brunette to the power-hungry business nymph to the man-hating dominatrix. It's the kind of performance that hints of some possible great things to come from one of her generations most promising actresses, but, as can be seen in MIRANDA, she's not quite there yet. The words come out of her mouth, but, particularly in the role of that focuses on dominance, there's questionable believability.

Also, the fine art of scamming (especially when you're dealing with millions of dollars) is made to appear all to easy in this plot of selling abandoned or demolition-scheduled real estate to high power brokers and dealers. A few comic missteps to make for a few laughs, and Frank's martial-arts-on-the-brain companion delivers a few more, but, when all is said and done, MIRANDA is simply over ... none the worse for wear.

Rating:
Summary: "Riccing" For It
Review: There's nothing incredibly gripping about MIRANDA, but there's nothing incredible boring either. The story about a con woman (the ever-budding Christina Ricci) finding love at the wrong time in her life is well-paced enough to keep one's interest, but the film isn't compelling enough to be that memorable.

Frank, a librarian kicking the doldrums by falling in love with the winning Ricci, flips head-over-heels once he finds out that he actually has a chance with the dressed-down Miranda (Ricci). Boy meets girl. Girl initially shuns boy. Girl becomes bored in the moments spent between one con job to the next. Girl gives in to boy's wishes for sex. Girl shuns boy (again). Boy goes after girl. Girl nearly gets boy muscled out of town. Boy persists. Girl eventually realizes the error of her ways and runs away with boy. The end.

Ricci is a bit of a breakout here, as she gravitates easily between the dowdy American brunette to the power-hungry business nymph to the man-hating dominatrix. It's the kind of performance that hints of some possible great things to come from one of her generations most promising actresses, but, as can be seen in MIRANDA, she's not quite there yet. The words come out of her mouth, but, particularly in the role of that focuses on dominance, there's questionable believability.

Also, the fine art of scamming (especially when you're dealing with millions of dollars) is made to appear all to easy in this plot of selling abandoned or demolition-scheduled real estate to high power brokers and dealers. A few comic missteps to make for a few laughs, and Frank's martial-arts-on-the-brain companion delivers a few more, but, when all is said and done, MIRANDA is simply over ... none the worse for wear.

Rating:
Summary: Really deserves 1 Star, but there are worse movies (I think)
Review: Well, this movie was bad. I wanted to like it, but I felt like the pace was very slow and not funny enough to make up for the overall "goofiness." Sure, Ricci is beautiful, but she doesn't play a sexy and/or dangerous character, just a user and a criminal. The only characters with any redeeming features are the naive librarian who worships the con-woman he comes across and his friend from the library, who proves his loyalty at the end. I want to believe that Ricci will eventually give up her evil ways and turn into a trusting person, but after being disappointed myself by so many people who chose bad paths, "actions speak louder than words." The librarian unfortunately has victim written all over him, and it is almost certain that a character like the woman he falls in love with will only hurt him in the end.

John Hurt is looking old and couldn't do much to help this lousy picture. I have tried to like English, indie movies only to be consistently let down.