Kelly & Cal (2014)

KELLY & CAL  (2014)  ¢ ¢ ¢
    D: Jen McGowan
    Juliette Lewis, Jonny Weston, Josh Hopkins,
    Cybill Shepherd, Lucy Owen, Lusia Strus
What is it about Juliette Lewis? David Thomson goes to some trouble trying to answer that in "The Biographical Dictionary of Film", citing among other things the "Lolita" effect. (Lewis has been acting in movies and apparently living on her own since her early teens.) With her slightly crooked mouth and a yearning, wounded, better-not-fuck-with-me look about her eyes, she's like somebody whose mask doesn't quite fit, who's trying quietly, desperately, and without total success, to keep the demons at bay. Her characters can be reckless and vulnerable and sometimes they make terrible choices. They're not good at hiding their emotions - that imperfect mask again - and sometimes they don't even try. Heading into her 40s, she can't play Lolita anymore, though you sometimes see the girl in her, still. She's a remarkable actress and a bit of an oddity, and she's perfectly cast as Kelly, the bored suburban housewife in "Kelly & Cal". Stuck at home with a six-week-old kid (and not a lot of visible parenting skills), Kelly longs for some genuine human contact, and she's just not getting that from her late-working husband, her suffocating in-laws, or the condescending women she meets in the park. Where she does make a connection is with Cal (Jonny Weston), the crippled high-school senior who lives in the garage next door. Their relationship and its ramifications are the story of the film. Like a lot of indie flicks, this one has some rough spots. The husband's character feels underdeveloped, though Josh Hopkins does a nice job playing him. When Kelly on a whim decides to dye her hair bright blue, it's a little too obvious she's wearing a wig. And toward the end, the whole thing just goes kind of crazy, but maybe that's not so strange when its lead characters are both emotionally fragile and one of them's a teenager. Lewis more or less transcends all that with one of her best roles ever, a performance that touches nerves. You might not always believe the movie. But you always believe Juliette Lewis.