DVD Review - Forty Shades of Blue

I have mixed feelings about this film. It won a dramatic Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival and I am wondering why. However, I don't think that the film is a waste of time either.

From the minute we see Laura (Dina Korzun), who is Russian, we can see just how unhappy she is. She lives in Memphis with a much older man named Alan who is a music producer (Rip Torn) and they have a young son. Alan is very domineering and even though he is with a much younger woman he finds it necessary to sleep around. Things take a turn when Alan's son Michael (Darren E. Burrows) comes to visit them. Alan and Michael have not seen each other for many years and this is the first time that Michael and Laura meet. Michael's wife April is due to come in a few days but we learn that he is not happy in the marriage (it just so happens that April is pregnant). I am not going to say anything else because I don't want to give anything away. But things are so predictable that as the film moves along you will be able to guess what happens.

Ira Sachs does a decent but not great job of directing. His screenplay, co-written with Michael Rohatyn, is very simplistic and the characters could have been more developed. If the film had a better screenplay it would have made a world of difference. Torn gives a terrific performance as a man who finds it hard to see who he really is. Kurzon conveys a great deal of pain as Laura. Although I really felt her misery it remains a fact that she never changed her expression during the entire film. In the end, this is not a bad film. But the fact that I didn't really care about any of the characters means that it didn't work for me.