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Habu974
Reviews
The Gift (1990)
Striking effective Brit serial for Teens
Saw this in 1990 on ABC TV in Australia. I was hooked by the boy's powers, loyalty shown by his friend Sonia (a very young but totally convincing Jodhi May, 2 years before _Last of the Mohicans_) & the silent menace of Wolf (Gary Whelan), who pursues them.
At only six 25 minute episodes, it was typical of Brit TV drama of the time, but told an effective story with real tension & no sense of predictability or a comfortable outcome.
Tenderness (2009)
Tragic story with excellent unknown leads, plus Crowe and Dern.
**Warning: Spoilers** I cannot believe the level of odium and hate directed toward this movie and its director based on two constrained mediocre Hollywood efforts. Polson has made more than these movies, and this is a return to the smaller, sharper works he first made in Aust.
Let's get a few things straight: it is slow, but not boring: it's a drama, not a thriller. Both unknown leads act exceptionally well and both Hollywood stars are well behind them, Crowe's grimly silent cop and Dern's anxious, grieving Aunt.
The motivations of both characters are also not opaque, or never seen: we know Eric has killed before - the cop knows of one and suspects him of a separate unsolved case we see him leafing thru in a diner.
Lori has been abused before ("my mom has always kinda been a perv magnet") - she has to strip for her store manager, and lock her bathroom door against her mother's boyfriend's eyes. He has forced her to sex at least once. She has also been abused by Eric, less directly: she saw him kiss and kill the girl he strangled. When his mother suspected something, Eric killed her, and then his father, in their large middle-class home. Eric went to prison for these crimes, never connecting the young girl who became obsessed with him, scrapbooking his case ardently in an attempt to escape her mundane, working-class life.
He is released to live with his dead mother's sister: he prays, is apparently reformed, tho' very restrained without being overtly cold and sociopathic: supposedly going to start a new life, try college. He has flashbacks, perhaps he is remorseful: Crowe's Lt. Cristofuoro is sure he will kill again, and tells him so. Cristofuoro has a silent, bedridden wife in a hospital: terminally ill and on oxygen, we see him watching videos of them before her illness, while he massages and washes her.
Eric is set up before release in juvenile detention by Cristofuoro and the authorities: they slip in a girl from the female section of the centre, whom he sees; later someone slips him a note purporting to be from her, and once released he phones Maria to arrange meeting at Funland, an entertainment park upstate from Buffalo NY.
Lori (She says her full name is Lorelei - a German creature who lures men to their deaths in rivers) runs away from home: stands beside the media outside his Aunts': when he leaves to meet Maria, he's shocked to find her sleeping in his car: Eric thinks Lori's a plant by Cristofuoro or the media; she knows who he is and can't believe he doesn't remember her. Their progress thru' spring upstate New York toward Maria, followed by Cristofuoro, is an anxious road movie.
Eric is tormented by memories, tries to ditch Lori repeatedly: never warms to her, once nearly kills her. After another confronting scene, she reveal she saw him kill the girl: how beautiful and tender it was: loves him, wants him to strangle her "With your hands." Lori is devastated when Eric won't.
At Funland, with Lori in tow, Eric meets Maria, is led away to the river by her: Lori sees from the roller-coaster: intervenes, drives off Maria and reveals the bushes full of cops. They are questioned but released: he's aware, now or before, of the trap; Lori is aware of what he is, despite all Cristofuoro's warnings.
Eric and Lori return to the state park where he almost strangled her upon remembering who she was; where they saw couples boating. She convinces him to take them out onto the lake: they argue, she doesn't think things can change: we have no idea if he does, or if he knew Maria was a plant. Lori jumps into the lake, he follows to save her, aware she cannot swim: she drowns and he is remorseful: he didn't want to kill her, he wishes they had never met again. Eric returns to prison for her murder, tho' Cristofuoro knows him innocent of this, but guilty of killing the other girls.
It's worth remembering that tho' Eric is clearly a serial killer, Lori is certainly seriously disturbed (partly as a result of what she saw him do), and in the beginning, at meeting, and at the end, the only thing that can make Lori happy is for him to kill her: not sex, not love, not friendship, not leave or rescue, not even rape: the _only_ way she feels he can love her is to kill her. Which he refuses to do, except in the State Park restroom, before we suspect or are told this is what she wants.
Lori is not trying to torment Eric, reform him, punish him, rescue him, or herself. She wants what he gave the girl he killed. He wants the power of seeing a life fade, the sexual high of making it happen.
This wonderfully scripted, shot and acted film is a tragedy, not a thriller: expect the odd moment of tension, but pity all their ruined lives.
P'raps the most tragic thing (aside from the legacy of abuse she carries) is that while not naive, Lori has never had curry before, never seen a Chinese-American cop, never learned to swim.