Sunday, March 28, 2010

The Vicious Kind and Pain -- Bad Title; Fine Film


I wasn't in the mood for moody, dark cinema the other evening when I started to watch a download of the 2008 indie film, "The Vicious Kind" but it turned out to be one of the most uplifting, meaningful, well made films I've seen in a long time, one of those that sets you up beautifully and then turns its world upside for you to question every previous assumption. 


Young, Writer-Director Lee Toland Krieger wowed the 2009 Sundance Festival with this tightly scripted, penetratingly directed gem, demonstrating a rising, uncanny talent. 


The film begins as a kind of noir, edgy, disturbing, taunt, almost Biblical set up -- in a small, Rhode Island country town, Thanksgiving visit, two brothers, a beautiful, bright, very young unsure college girlfriend brought home to meet dad, unwittingly stirring up, bitter, long-still smoldering, banked family ashes.