film
Let The Right One In
Tru Loved
Tenebrous, occasionally gruesome, but with
moments of arresting beauty, this Swedish miracle
breathes new death into the vampire cliche. Oskar,
a cherry-lipped, snow-haired schoolboy bullied by
his peers, becomes enamored of Eli, a strange girl
who moves into his building. She can scale walls
like Spider-Man, can solve a Rubik’s Cube with
hardly an effort and seems to have a thirst for
human blood. There is something “queer” about
their warped love story, especially when you
consider that Eli (who says, “I am not a girl” more
than once) may represent Oskar’s revenge-fantasy
versitin of himself. Now playing at Cinema 21. A
—Tony LeTigre
Writer/director Stewart Wade’s Tru Loved
became a cause célèbre after a recent review by
Roger Ebert, who trashed it with a one-star rat
ing based on watching a mere eight minutes of
a DVD screener. The resulting uproar triggered
some lively discussions on Ebert’s blog about the
ethics of film critics. But maybe the laugh is on
him. Despite his negative attitude toward it, the
controversy has no doubt benefited the film by
calling so much attention to it. Some of Ebert’s
mistakes based on reading the Internet Movie
Database (like saying Bruce Vilanch played two
characters) have also given Tru Loved a bit of a
David vs. Goliath patina.
Readers who followed the debate but have ac
tually seen the film may wonder what all the fuss
was about, particularly Ebert’s inexplicable charge
(based on a stylized opening fantasy sequence)
that Tru Loved is an incompetent film. A full
viewing shows that, while it is no masterpiece and
surely has its problems, the film is not just profes
sionally made, but an often winning mix of com
edy, drama and social commentary, making up in
heart what it lacks in subtlety. (Ebert’s charge of
incompetence is a curious one not echoed in the
mostly positive reviews from The New York Times,
Variety and other major venues.)
Tru Loved opens with a witty sequence that
introduces some of the characters via a sendup of
1950s Leave It to Beaver-type sitcoms. The main
character is 16-year-old Tru (Najarra Townsend),
who’s just relocated with her two moms from
tolerant San Francisco (where her two gay dads
live) to intolerant Los Angeles suburb Agoura
Hills. Not unexpectedly, Tru quickly encounters
her new school’s homophobia (internalized and
otherwise) in the form of queer-baiting football
player Manny and his equally ignorant coach,
a queeny literature teacher who pretends he’s not
gay and closeted jock Lodell (Matthew Thomp
son). Lodell inducts her into his clique but has an
ulterior motive: He is terrified of being discovered
and needs a beard. Tru is too sweet to say no, de
spite the fact that it goes against all her beliefs.
Things get more complicated as the pressures
of Lodell’s closet increases, and the film hits the
bull’s-eye in scenes where he mortifies Tru by
overacting the role of straight Romeo at her ex
pense. Tru and a queen named Walter start a Gay
Straight Alliance, Tru hooks up with a straight
boy, and the plot twists—including a gay-bashing
Quantum of Solace
Daniel Craig, the latest* (and sexiest) of the
James Bonds, has been airlifted into a thoroughly
mundane movie. One expects the plot of a Bond
film to be incomprehensible. But one also expects
the latest in gadgetry, chase scenes that thrill and
passionate sparks between Bond and his bimbo
du jour. Here, as with the special effects, there is
nothing particularly new, fresh or exciting. This
sequel to Craig’s first Bond incarnation, the ter
rific Casino Royale, is a losing hand. C
—Floyd Sklaver
Tru Loved is both a convincing message movie
about living authentically.
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Elliott, Powell, Baden
sequence—continue up
to the end.
Tru Loved is both
a convincing message
movie
about
living
authentically and
a
diverting entertainment.
Townsend is totally
credible as Tru, while
Two Indian women in 1950s South Africa fall in love against a
Thompson nails the
background of pervasive racism in The World Unseen.
difficult role of a well-
intentioned, somewhat desperate boy whose secret
tom by remaining stubbornly single and not really
takes its toll on others besides himself. Eagle-eyed
bothering to hide her lesbianism; she also under
viewers will spot Star Trek’s Nichelle Nichols cuts South Africa’s racist laws by owning her cafe
as Lodell’s sassy grandma, and real-life queer
in name only and operating it equitably with an
superstars David Kopay and Jane Lynch appear in
older black man, Jacob, as if he were a co-owner.
cameos. Less effective are Tru’s various parents,
The women’s mutual attraction is expo
unable to make their underwritten roles seem
nentially complicated by circumstance and
real. Also questionable is the amount of music
sociopolitical environment. Miriam’s husband
on the soundtrack, which sometimes overwhelms cheats on her with impunity but expects her
key scenes in bombast. Still, this is ultimately
to be a dutiful, docile and faithful wife—a
an earnest, affecting effort that deserves—and
double standard that the film implies was com
rewards—a viewing, preferably complete.
mon and expected by a married couple of their
Opens Nov. 21 at Hollywood Theatre. B +
time, place and class. Slowly but surely, how
—Gary Morris
ever, circumstances and emotions wear down
Miriam’s endemic conformity until she is able
Twilight
to take a small but sure step toward her own
Twilight is here! And it’s not very good! A thor identity.
oughly uninteresting cast of bloodlessly pretty,
The love story between Miriam and Amina
pale-skinned near-teens sleepwalks through a ter takes place against a background of pervasive
rible script, lacking intensity, honesty, thrills or
police brutality and racism, and the film takes
surprises. New superstar Robert Pattinson hasn’t
a good, hard look at a system that might grant
got the skills to depict immortal lust and make it
certain privileges to one minority group (Indi
believable, and possibly talented Kristen Stewart
ans) that it denies to another (blacks) in order
just seems to be on a high dose of cold medicine.
to keep them divided and suspicious of each
A truly boring and yawn-inducing film, Twilight
other. In addition, the film’s parallel love sto
can only be recommended for fans (of which there
ry—a sweet autumn-years attraction between
Jacob and a postmistress, an anti-segregation
are plenty), children or viewers for whom chaste,
ist white woman—is choked by the poisonous
tell-don’t-show romance trumps quality. D
—Jemiah Jefferson
atmosphere of South African race relations in
the 1950s.
Sheth is vibrant as sassy, liberated Amina,
The World Unseen
but Ray is particularly remarkable as a woman
Adapted with a surprisingly strong visual sen
sibility from her 2001 novel of the same name, di who is truly torn between familiar oppression
and a freedom so unthinkable that it frightens
rector Shamim Sharifs The World Unseen focuses
her. The film’s happy ending is graceful, absent of
on a community seldom explored on film: Indians
grandiosity or too much finality. It offers genuine
who lived in South Africa under British rule and
reassurance, convincingly suggesting that one
apartheid. The film is set in 1952, when Indian
small individual action, while not a panacea, can
wife and mother Miriam (Lisa Ray) is confused
be rhe difference between hope and despair.
and exhilarated by the freedom of restaurateur
Opens Nov. 21 at Living Room Theaters. B
Amina (Sheetal Sheth), another Indian woman.
—Christopher McQuain ©
Amina defies the sexist strictures of Indian cus
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