PERSONAL VELOCITY: THREE PORTRAITS

US, 2002, 87 minutes, Colour.
Kyra Sedgwick, Parker Posey, Fairuza Balk, David Warchovsky, Leo Fitzpatrick, Tim Guinee, Patti d'Arbanville, Joel de la Fuente, Seth Gilliam.
Directed by Rebecca Miller.

A short feature, produced on video, with glimpses of three women. Rebecca Miller (daughter of Arthur Miller) adapted her own stories for the screen and directed the film. It is a small budget work.

The three stories offer familiar portraits of women, the important thing being here that we share the writer's perspectives on these women (although, strangely, the voiceover is by a man).

Kyra Sedgwick is Delia, ignored by her father, the school tramp who married at seventeen and now has three children. We are suddenly shocked by the brutality of her husband at the dinner table and are plunged into Delia's dilemma of whether she should leave or not and where she could go. Her surliness is no help at the shelter for battered women and she seeks out an acquaintance who she thought was on the outer back at school. In fact Delia receives kindness from her, finds a job. Maybe a life is possible.

Greta is quite the opposite. She is the daughter of a reputable lawyer. She herself is moving up in the book publishing world. Her job is secure. She has a loving husband. But, she has problems (like her father to whom she
does not speak after he abandoned her mother) with fidelity. An incisively cutting book editor, she sadly comes to realise she is going to edit her husband out of her life. Parker Posey is Greata.

Fairuza Balk is Paula, a runaway now living in New York with a Haitian and pregnant. When she narrowly escapes death in a car accident, she picks up a hitchhiker, a young man who has been physically brutalised, and visits her mother. She begins to sort herself out as regards her boyfriend, the coming baby and caring for the runaway.

Low key stories that are more persuasive because of the performances than the writing.

1. The film as an adaptation by the writer-director of Three Short Stories? The literary style, the voice-over, the rhetorical flourishes? An adequate transition from literature to film?

2. The three short stories, the linking accident? Three facets of women? The impact of each of the stories, the credibility of the central characters? The challenges offered by the lives and crises of each characters?

3. The title, Greta's father saying it at the party, the personal pace of achievement of each person? The title with reference to Delia, to Greta, to Paula?

4. Video production and style, the mobility of the camera, the intimacy, the close-up portraits? The grainy/realistic feel? Colour photography? Editing and pace? The musical score, songs, ironic comment, classics?

5. How well did the stories cohere, the linking accident? The women and their being mirrors of each other, different class, different background, wealth and poverty, opportunity and lack of opportunity, self-determination?

6. Delia's story, the voice-over commenting on her background, the glimpses of her past? Childhood, her relationship with her parents? At school. Sexual behaviour? On the outside? Marrying Kurt, seventeen? The three children? The initial introduction to her, caring for the children, coming home, Kurt's sudden brutality at the table? The memoirs about his brutality and the reasons for it? His locking the children away, throwing Delia into the cellar? His sitting, reflecting on what he had done? Delia deciding to take the children, in the car, their relationship with their mother? Trying to decide what to do, the phone calls? Her ringing Fay, seeming hesitation, Fay's acceptance? The arrival at Fay's, Fay's welcome, her husband at the television, the cookies, the garage? Delia getting a job, the commentary telling about her success as a waitress, her intimidation and attraction? The son of the owner, pimply, self-deluded about sex? Delia taking him in the car, the sexual experience, his reaction, her motivation - going back to her mould, breaking it, being in control? Her future?

7. Greta, the copy editor, her happy marriage, her age and experience? Going to the boss, thinking interiorly that she was to be fired? Her getting the top job? Her joy, her husband's response, going to the party, enjoying it, advances, going home? Her relationship with her husband, the flashback explanations about her mother and father, her mother in Auschwitz, the marriage to her father and his abandoning his family, her own rejection with her father having a liaison with his assistant? Her admiration for her father, the law, principles, disappointing her, not speaking to him? Her meeting her husband, the marriage, his thesis - her not reading it, then reading it and wanting to edit it? In herself, the memory of the affair with the rabbi, meeting him, the cigarettes, while she was engaged? Her going ahead and marrying? The freeze-frames giving the audience time to pause and reflect on what happened? Her working with the author, his flirtation, her response? Her love for her husband, the success of the book, her father throwing the party, her reconciliation with her father and friends? Her being offered a better job, the boss not matching the offer, her taking it? Reading with her husband - and her realising, with great sadness, that she would have to edit him out of her life? The news of the accident?

8. Paula, her age, picking up the hitchhiker, his being taciturn? Her not knowing where to go, visiting her mother, the story of her mother and the separation from her father, the other man coming in, meeting him and his hostile reaction to her? Her mother's support? The flashbacks about her running away, the encounter with Vincent in the park, his kindness, moving in with him? Her pregnancy, fears, termination? Going to the bar, meeting the Norwegian man, his courtesy after she was splashed, the horror of his being killed in the accident? Her bewilderment, running away? The reason for picking up the hitchhiker, giving him something to eat, his waiting in the car, her apprehension that he might steal the car? Going back, her mother urging her to take the train, getting the doughnuts, seeing his injuries, buying the medicines, treating him? In the shop, his taking the car - a sense of liberation, a sense of mothering of the young man, her own consciousness of her child, her skipping in the street?

9. The value of the voice-over, telling the audience too much instead of visuals? The fact that it was a man doing the voice-over? Male perspective, voicing a woman's perspective?

10. A portrait of women, women's issues in the United States, women's issues for themselves, in relationship to men, in self-determination and assertion?