Neil Sonnekus
one-print release of the week
The problem with good people is that they are devilishly difficult to portray without seeming soppily dutiful or dramatically dull and, thanks at least in part to someone who lived about two millennia ago, they usually die young.
That profound psychological insight probably helped give birth to modern Western tragedy, but the Oriental way towards enlightenment seems both more disciplined and gentle, which is where Committed (Johannesburg only), whether consciously or not, drew its inspiration from.
Joline (Heather Graham) is one of those translucently beautiful people who happens to be genuinely, if a little naively, good. So when she marries the berk Carl (Luke Wilson, last seen as the hilariously stupid cop in Blue Streak) and he soon after dumps her because he needs to “find” himself, she chooses to believe him.
Later on she decides to track him down in order to be of further service to him, if only from a distance. The clue of a corny farewell note on the back of a kitsch postcard with a cactus on it transforms itself into that place where so many seekers go to find their shaman, satori or self – the desert.
In this case it’s the small, dry border town of El Paso, where Carl is still doing exactly what he was trying to escape in New York: food photography.
To us it might seem like Joline needs to be committed for caring about this overgrown, emotionally indulgent brat, but then her way of thinking also leads to her attracting a gallery of weird and wonderful people and possibly her – another wickedly difficult dramatic form – enlightenment.
This comical, sagacious and magical exploration of the tenuous line between goodness and insanity puts writer/director Lisa Krueger in the same league as brave young directors of films like Boys Don’t Cry and Waking the Dead. Pity there’s only one copy in the country.