Movie Review

Winter Passing

"Winter Passing" is the screenwriting and directorial debut of Adam Rapp, a former playwright who can't shake himself away from his own theatrical sense. His film has a very staged vibe to it, having more to do with the over-dramatic actions of its characters than the actual characters themselves. In its quest for sympathy, it feels like it?s willing to bang the audience over the head in order to get there.

The film stars Zooey Deschanel as Reese, a struggling actress living in New York City. Her life has been no picnic, all starting from a lousy childhood of being the daughter of two writers too self-indulgent to actually give their daughter the time of day. She can only remember one time when her parents actually supported her ? during a school play in which mom passed out during intermission. Reese?s emotional pain has led to drug addiction, forcing sex on random guys when she?s angry, and slamming her hand in a drawer just so that she can cry. Her only real friend is a little kitten, only that is about to die of leukemia.

Reese is a total mess and the last thing she would ever want to do is revisit the Michigan home she lived in for the first couple decades of her life. Only when a book editor (Amy Madigan) comes to her with the offer of $100,000 for letters written by her father to her late mother, Reese can do nothing more than accept the money, although even she has no idea what she?s in for once she returns to that house. She returns home to find that dad has two new houseguests, a would-be Christian rocker named Corbit (Will Ferrell) and a grad student named Shelly (Amelia Warner), who is a recovering cancer patient that Reese's father supported during the rough patches. This is a huge surprise to Reese, who knew her father as an atheist and a selfish prick.

Her father is Don Holden (Ed Harris), a James Patterson-type suspense writer who went the route of J.D Salinger when his last book "had so many spelling errors the editors thought it was about an illiterate." After the death of his wife, Don has decided to take up residence in the moldy, messy garage. He is addicted to sleeping pills, wakes up screaming, and seems to have a certain fear of the outdoors, refusing to come outside for any reason. Reese is appalled at the entire situation, treating the new houseguests with disdain while ignoring her father altogether. Only upon finding the letters, she learns some pretty rough secrets that can either bring her and Don closer together or forever draw them apart.

Depression can be interesting, like in last year?s great movie with Nicholas Cage, "The Weather Man," in which he plays a man dealing with inadequacy, and the tribulations of life. Only here Adam Rapp has no mind for the characters. They?re boring, one-dimensional, and seemingly exist for no other reason than to resort to empty vices like inflicting physical pain on themselves, suicide, and addiction to all substances Robert Downey Jr. has under his favorites list. These things serve only to mask a bland family drama that doesn't even get off the ground. There is barely a moment when Reese and Don seem to be connecting with one another on a human level because they spend so much more time wallowing in their own self-pity to even recognize the other is in the room. This leads to an ending that feels completely phony, all because we?ve seen so little character growth from either one of them.

In addition to that, Rapp makes some really awful attempts at trying to lighten the mood of his "oh so bleak, it's boring" tale by bringing Will Ferrell into the mix to round off some really lame jokes. "Shelly, your breasts are delicious" he reviews during a chicken dinner (yeah, it played to dead silence at the screening too). As a dramatic actor, Ferrell surprises however. He shows an innocence that rises above the sob story material and makes him somewhat likable. Deschanel and Harris also do their best, Deschanel showing a fragile and emotionally scarred woman while Harris looks disheveled, walks with a limp, and is completely believable as a reclusive writer. Just after a while everything about this movie just started to shout "waaaa waaaa waaaa." There isn't much to "Winter Passing" besides a major opportunity to over-dramatize the blandness, which is something Rapp can't help but embrace.

Craig's Grade: D+

A	10.9%
B	41.8%
C	31.8%
D	15.3%
F	0.3%