MORVERN CALLAR (2002)  ****

Reviewed 12/20/02

Samantha Morton is one of the best actresses alive.  MORVERN CALLAR is the proof.  Lynne Ramsey’s first feature-length film, RATCATCHER, had some wonderfully observed moments, but on the whole suffered from feeling like she didn’t have a sturdy hand on the rudder.  There’s none of that in MORVERN CALLAR, which brims with confident, strident, simply stunning filmmaking.   That would be enough to make MORVERN CALLAR a terrific film, but Samantha Morton, the film’s essence, lifts it out of the stratosphere.

Adapting Alan Warner’s novel about a woman, Morvern Callar (Morton), grieving after her boyfriend commits suicide, Ramsay daringly forsakes voice-over and instead conveys Callar’s emotional states practically through visuals and music alone.  Several critics have aptly described MORVERN CALLAR as a tone poem, and the movie has little in the way of plot.  The film it conceptually most resembles is Hirokazu Kore-eda’s great MABOROSI, also about a woman grieving for her deceased lover.  Like MABOROSI, MORVERN CALLAR is a mood piece, but Callar displays a much greater range of emotional response than her Japanese counterpart, the most prominent of which is an embracing of the joy offered in her sudden freedom, not that she can ever forget about the dead body she finds beneath her Christmas tree.

It’s a movie in which you can tell precisely what is in Callar’s head by the environment around her.  When she is with Lanna’s grandmother, Ramsay frames the room symbolic of matronly protection from the coldness still stirring in Callar – a warm yellow lamp sits on one side of her, a red fireplace lit comfortably on the other while a heavy snow fall can be seen through the window over which Callar’s figure is positioned.  It’s a sensuous movie in every way, and few films have the visceral texture of this one – the density of the street pavement beneath Morvern’s heels, the cold emptiness of the supermarket where she works, the arid landscape of Spain where she takes a road trip with her best friend Lanna (Kathleen McDermott).

Ramsay’s camera practically makes love to Morton.  It is trained on her almost every single intimate minute of the movie and there's not one moment of falsity or self-consciousness and countless moments of emotional brilliance and transcendence amid all the psychological and physical nakedness on display.  McDermott is almost as wonderful as free-spirited friend Lanna.  That this is her film acting debut is astounding.  She and Morton are completely convincing as the dearest of friends with a long history between them.

This is a movie that is subjective and impressionistic, not realistic.  While the storyline is almost always perfectly clear, Ramsay does not explicate much and let's the implausible or nonsensical be.  While MORVERN CALLAR is beautiful, observant, funny, and moving, it is not a movie for those who hunger for strong narrative, but for everyone else, Ramsay’s sophomore feature is not to be missed.