Posts Tagged ‘SUSPICIOUS RIVER’

SUSPICIOUS RIVER

suspicious-river-2000-05-gThis is a rather distasteful indie film from Canadian director Lynn Stopkewich. Set in Washington state, where apparently it rains all the time, it features Molly Parker as a hooker motel clerk who is trying to raise money to escape her dreary life. One of her clients, Callum Keith Rennie, appears to be her ticket out of dullsville, but turns out to be her worst nightmare. To describe these people as dysfunctional does dysfunctional people a disservice. The movie is populated by characters would make even Jerry Springer blush – drunks, cheaters and physically abusive men. The only missing deviant behavior here is incest and necrophilia, and that’s only because Miss Parker has already covered the latter in 1996’s Kissed for the same director. Parker and Rennie are remarkable actors, and Stopkewich is a capable director who isn’t afraid to push the envelope and take chances with her craft. I only wish they would have given us something to aspire to instead of dredging up the seedy lives of these miserable characters.