IMAGINARY CRIMES
A film review by Eric Mankin
Copyright 1994 Eric Mankin
Here's an unusual cinema event: a chance to watch Harvey Keitel portray a seedy loser. The latest one's named Ray Weiler, a low rent deadbeat/con man and widower father of two in Kennedy administration Portland, Oregon. "An opportunity like this comes once in a blue moon," we see him telling a mark, as his daughter Sonya (Fairuza Balk) cringes in shame and embarrassment. Haven't we seen this movie before?
The details are different. It's anchored in 1962, Sonya's senior year in the private school that Ray has managed to talk her into. She is writing reminiscences of her earlier life, giving the film an opportunity to dip into the past and follow Ray through the shipwreck of a hundred inventions that don't quite work and mining claims that don't quite pan out, through the death of Sonya's mother (Kelly Lynch) and the illness of her sister Greta. Sonya's writing talent brings her to the attention of a kindly English teacher, and a chance at college, as Ray's lies build to critical mass.
Anthony Drazen (Zebrahead) directed the adaptation (by Kristine Johns and Davia Nelson) of Sheila Ballantyne's coming of age memoir. The acting is faultless. Keitel could play this character in his sleep from inside an iron lung; but he gets effective help from Lynch, Chris Penn (as a disgruntled investor); and Balk, last seen in GAS, FOOD, LODGING. The scene and costume design is predictably perfect, down to the pastel Melmac dinnerware and the harlequin revival eyeglass frames; the music (by Stephen Endelman) is effective. All that's missing is any raising of the stakes beyond the most familiar strong-child-takes- on-bad-parent interaction--in short, any surprise at all.
Eric Mankin
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