BEFORE: Examining different forms of mental illness this week - a couple strays before I start the Jim Carrey chain of "morons, psycopaths & mental defectives".
THE PLOT: An outsider and a young woman plagued by Tourette's syndrome meet and together journey to Canada.
AFTER: Family abuse, mental illness, booze + pills, random violence, robbery and auto theft. It's another dark, depressing film developed over at the Sundance Institute - what's wrong with you people over there, were you not held enough as children or something? You know what people like? Light comedy, that's what - Will Ferrell is very popular these days, I'm just sayin'.
Robin Tunney (last seen in "End of Days") does a good job, I guess, of portraying Marcy, a woman with Tourette's Syndrome - is there a right way and a wrong way of doing that? I mean, you just say and do things randomly, right? A couple of twitches and tics and curse words? She goes on the run with Seth, played by Henry Thomas (last seen in "Gangs of New York") and has a hard time getting her medication from pharmacies on the way to Toronto. Apparently there are no doctors in upstate New York that could possibly confirm her condition and issue a prescription, so they're forced to break into a drug store.
From there, they get access to all kinds of uppers and downers, plus whiskey, all in the name of controlling Marcy's condition. I dunno, it seems a fairly long leap from petty shoplifting to armed robbery, but not for these two. Before they can follow in the footsteps of Bonnie and Clyde, they are befriended (sort of) by an upstate chicken farmer. He's an odd geezer who's also prone to random swearing, but not in a Tourette's kind of way.
What bothers me is that all of the mishaps and tight situations this pair encounters are never prefaced by either of them explaining, "She's got this condition" or "I've got Tourette's syndrome." Because I supposed that would be like admitting that this condition has power over her, and she doesn't want to feel helpless. I get that, but if you've got a medical condition that causes you to act wildly, and someone's holding a gun pointed at you, you might want to explain that you can't help BUT make sudden moves...
So there's not much logical sense here - I'm not even sure why they think things will be any different or better in Canada. Even that common myth about people being nicer there turns out to not be true.
I've witnessed quite enough tragedy on celluloid for a while - both intentional and unintentional. Tomorrow I've got to start lightening this up.
Also starring Stephen Lang (last seen in "Manhunter"), Michael Parks (last seen in "From Dusk to Dawn"), with cameos from Clea Duvall (last seen in "21 Grams"), Candy Clark (last seen in "The Man Who Fell to Earth"), and John Ventimiglia (Artie Bucco from "The Sopranos")
RATING: 3 out of 10 crushed cars
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