Christine Lahti who portrayed the ultra-liberal alternative-lifestyle-embracing (dark-humor scary understatement) mom in Petunia, portrays in Becks the uber-Catholic straight-laced diametrically-opposed mother. Setting the movie in St. Louis is perfect for a movie with peripheral nods to modern Catholic dilemmas. The script calls for a modest indictment of her Catholicism as cold, intolerant and off-putting, but considering Lahti's real-life liberal positions, I thought she brought a very genuine flavor of inner-conflict to this mother character whose broadened acceptance seems ultimately to be driven more by the loneliness of a widowed mother, rather than by true acceptance of her daughter. Becks had a dynamite script but should have been a much longer movie because Becks has amazing potential that was never fully explored. I don't want to share any spoilers, so I will just say that the last 15 minutes of the film suddenly and hurriedly conclude several beautifully-developed plot threads that have been brewing in a way that feels like the financial backers were saying "that's a wrap!" Still the movie touches on alot of relevant facets of class boundaries, relationships, family and other topics of core current issues. The music in the movie is excellent imho, and the casting is excellent, as are all the performers.
Review of Becks
