MORVERN CALLAR (2002) ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2
D: Lynne Ramsay
Samantha Morton, Kathleen McDermott, Linda McGuire,
Paul Popplewell, Dolly Wells, Raife Patrick Burchell
In the wake of her boyfriend's suicide, a grocery-store clerk finds that he's left her some money and a finished manuscript, a novel dedicated to her. She changes the name in the book's byline to her own and sends it off to a publisher, and she and a friend take the money and leave Scotland for a holiday in Spain. You can't always tell what this is supposed to add up to - it's as random as a road trip can be, and that's a lot of what the movie is - but with Samantha Morton in the lead, you don't want to stop watching, either. Her character might be lost, but she's going somewhere, and she's thinking beyond the grocery store. Morton opens a window on that, while remaining mostly inscrutable, and - something that's not lost on director Lynne Ramsay - she's got a great face.
