Take
By Marshall Fine
Rating:
Who's in it: Minnie Driver, Jeremy Renner
What's it about: A woman (Driver, "The Riches") drives to the desert to confront the man (Jeremy Renner, "28 Weeks Later") who took everything from her, before his execution.
Long journey: This film bounces back and forth in time, following Ana as she travels to the prison to meet Saul face to face and decide if she can grant him forgiveness for killing her child in a botched robbery. Then it takes her back to the days leading up to the event, with her struggling to help a difficult child find his way in the world. Even as we watch Saul talk to a chaplain while awaiting lethal injection, we see the sorry details of the day his life went very wrong, jumping from a slow downward slide on to the fast track to self-destruction. It's unsparing stuff, with no feel-good moments; instead, it asks the audience to consider the worst, then decide whether forgiveness would still be an option. Driver gives an emotionally wrenching performance, while Renner will get surprising sympathy from the audience as a character who can't get out of his own way.
Long story short: What's the opposite of a feel-good movie?
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