Best movie of this year hands down!

Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

Better Late Then Never

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

I watched a screener of this film on a lark and almost hit the Eject button when I saw the low- tech titles and dv quality. Just goes to show you that quality film-making and acting have nothing to do with budget. Virtually every film has at least one or two characters that seem like they are "acting" to the point that it takes you out of the film. I was waiting for said character to appear in this one and it never happened. Nor did any expected clichés. Yet, I couldn't stop watching. The director/writers and actors did an amazing job. I felt like I was watching real people (it's hard to believe there was a screenplay!). I can't stand the state of movies today, but at least this little indie brought me faith that good film-making can still be found if you just happen onto it.

I just got through watching this movie. It was quite real. I would have like to seen a bit more emotion. I would have liked to see this movie go on for another hour. It's one of those movies where the director could afford to do that with the audience. Bob is eye candy and the spitting image of my ex. I would have like to see him continue to evolve in the movie, to see the depths he might reach, had the movie continued on. I would have loved to see how Irene handled life as a single mother, totally single and dealing with her addiction, as well as her husband who was a total enabler and addict himself. It was nice to see another part of New York. I give this movie 8 stars because it, for those 138 minutes, had me experiencing someone else's life and entranced me. Total sequel movie. Hopefully it is in the making-I want to know how her and her husband met, how she was introduced to drugs, how she handled her pregnancies, and what feelings she was experiencing that kept her in her vicious emotional and destructive addictive cycle. Total sequel material.

Director Debra Granik knows how to tell a story in such a subtle way that even when the topic is drug addiction she allows her characters to be three-dimensional people instead of the usual stereotypes that conflict the emotional impact of such films.Irene (Vera Farmiga, an intensely talented young actress) is the mother of two sweet boys Ben (Jasper Daniels) and Jason (Taylor Foxhall) and is married to a nice guy Steve (Clint Jordan) who plays with drugs but is in no way as addicted as Irene is to cocaine. The story takes us through Irene's addiction, her committing herself to a drug rehab program where she meets Lucy (Caridad 'La Bruja' De La Luz), also kicking her habit, and male nurse Bob (Hugh Dillon) who has been clean from heroin addiction for five years. Irene leaves the rehab too early (she is mostly concerned about the welfare of her children and her job) and when she starts back to work as a grocery checker she is dismissed when she confesses to prior drug use: being 'clean' makes her slower at the check out stand! She partners with Lucy cleaning homes, trying to straighten out her life, but falls in love with Bob and together they have an affair and start using again. Rather than end the story the writers (Debra Granik and Richard Lieske) simply allow the story to remain open ended, much the way the daily lives of those struggling with the demon of drug addiction live. This technique of unresolved relationships is immensely powerful.The performance by Farmiga establishes her as one of our truly important actresses. She gives us a credible human being who is out of focus with the world because of her drug use, but despite some borderline behavior patterns she maintains our compassion. The remainder of the cast is superb. The icy cinematography by Michael McDonough and the superb film editing by Malcolm Jamieson deserve applause. This is a powerful little film that provides more understanding of the psyches of those struggling to live both with addiction and after addiction. Highly recommended. Grady Harp

Having been intrigued by Vera Farmiga's idiosyncratic turn as a confused police psychologist in Martin Scorsese's viscerally impressive "The Departed", I was curious to see her in this critically acclaimed low-budget 2005 indie. As it turns out, she gives a startling, soul-bearing performance as Irene, a working class wife and mother with a cocaine dependency problem. The primary difference between this film and more conventionally moralizing addiction movies is how her drug-taking habit has so casually permeated her life.Written (with Richard Lieske) and directed by first-timer Debra Granik, the film provides a documentary-like feel for Irene's downtrodden existence in New York's blue-collar-dominated Ulster County as a supermarket cashier, who has been likely a stoner for most of her adult life. Cut off by her drug dealer for falling behind on her payments, she pilfers one of her children's birthday checks and realizes the depths she has plumbed. Checking herself into rehab, Irene looks like she is on the road to recovery, but she is hamstrung by an affair that starts with Bob, a male nurse recovered from his own addiction. Compounded by her firing from the market and a husband who continues to enable her, she finds herself in a vicious circle of entangled dependency and dwindling hope.The movie gets choppy and unnecessarily elliptical at times, although it is not as desultory as one would expect from the set-up. Don't expect any bravura set pieces for Farmiga, who is in almost every scene. It is the utter sense of emotional desolation she conveys in the small moments that resonates. Even when she shows how much she cares for her two sons or has moments of hope about a brighter future, there is a lingering melancholy that haunts all her scenes. Though clearly overshadowed, Hugh Dillon is quite good as Bob, as is Clint Jordan as husband Steve. I was surprised to find out from the informative commentary track by Granik and Farmiga that many of the supporting players were local non-actors. The 2006 DVD also includes the primitive but still impressive 1997 twenty-minute short, "Snake Feed", upon which the film is based.