Friday, September 30, 2011

Blue Car (2002)

Meg (Agnes Bruckner) discovers her blossoming talent as a poet in AP English. It gives her respite from her duties as stand-in mom at home to her mentally ill younger sister as her single mom works to make ends meet since Meg’s father abandoned them.

The pressure gets to neglected Meg as her sister Lily (Regan Arnold) cuts herself, won’t eat and obsesses about morbidity. Blue CarMeg finds solace in the attention of her English teacher, Mr. Auster (David Strathairn). She wins a contest and a chance to go to the regionals. As he mentors her writing, she develops feelings for him. I hoped that Blue Car wouldn’t go “there” to the realm of the student-teacher affair. You see it coming but for a long time, it looks as though it will be averted until it comes crashing.

The distance between the two girls and their mother grows. Meg hides more as tragedy strikes the family. She is determined to get to the regionals which leads to the movie’s crescendo. Meg’s brooding and sadness saturate the screen. I loved the process where how she writes her poem Blue Car. The way we are there with Meg’s emotions and reality is the strongest aspect of Blue Car. In need of attention and love, Meg she puts all her hopes and dreams in her teacher’s basket. He takes advantage of this, but she is metamorphosing. She has become a writer but Auster isn’t who she believed him to be. The ending brings her to a new understanding of how she fits in the world and what she needs to stand on her own.

Writer/Director: Karen Moncrieff

Country: USA

Genre: Drama

Run time: 96 minutes

Scale: 3

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