I have to say it doesn't start out pregnant with promise.
An amnesiac, Denis Leary, is being treated in the private room of a Connecticut hospital by a psychiatrist, Hope Davis. Leary wisecracks a lot and there are flashbacks of memory. (Ho hum.) They can't leave the grounds but Leary and Davis walk around on the autumnal lawns and get to know one another, and we sense a bond building between the patient and his psychiatrist. Will she help him overcome whatever demons drove him into a state of amnesia? Will the revelation be a shocker? (Zzzzz.)
But then, two-thirds of the way through, the character of the story changes completely into something resembling science fiction. There have been interpolated incidents in which Davis dons some kind of oxygen-breathing apparatus and visits her sister in another wing of the hospital, evidently suffering from one of those diseases that are always called "dread." The visit is distracting and pointless, until the movie approaches its end. I don't think I'll say more about the plot because there are surprises in it, some of which I couldn't get my head around.
I've always liked Denis Leary -- rough voice, nothing face -- because he reminds me of a guy I met in a bar just off Pershing Square the night before I was to make a long sea trip many moons ago. Both Irish, both from Worcester. Leary might have been a fork lift driver or had some job that left his hands black with grease. He's an appealing actor, if not a powerful one.
Hope Davis. Is that a WASP cognomen or what? She isn't striking at first. Her role as the psychiatrist who sheds some of her objectivity doesn't give her much wiggle room. But there is a wistful quality about her. She's a pretty blond with an endearing weak chin. Her features evoke an image of one of those little fishes just about to be eaten by a bigger fish. Yes, she could pass for a caregiver. Gradually, she and her character grow on you, and it's easy to see why Leary would become, not just fond of, but dependent on her by the very end.
In reality it's a pumped-up two- or three-person play. Nothing dramatic happens. Nobody's head gets torn off. And the introduction, Act I, is sluggish. "Final" would have done nicely as an episode of "Alfred Hitchcock Presents." It's competently directed by Campbell Scott, George C.'s son.
From the beginning, I kept wanting to get up and walk away but Hope Davis' quirky nose, not the plot, kept me in my seat for an hour or so, and when Leary starts looking for "The Alexandria Quartet" in the hospital book store, the film more or less had me. I mean, after all, here is a quartet that isn't a rock group. On top of that, Leary wants Frost's "Swinger of Trees" read at his grave, poem I used to read to my kid when he was about eleven. It became imperative at that point that I find out what the hell was going on.
An amnesiac, Denis Leary, is being treated in the private room of a Connecticut hospital by a psychiatrist, Hope Davis. Leary wisecracks a lot and there are flashbacks of memory. (Ho hum.) They can't leave the grounds but Leary and Davis walk around on the autumnal lawns and get to know one another, and we sense a bond building between the patient and his psychiatrist. Will she help him overcome whatever demons drove him into a state of amnesia? Will the revelation be a shocker? (Zzzzz.)
But then, two-thirds of the way through, the character of the story changes completely into something resembling science fiction. There have been interpolated incidents in which Davis dons some kind of oxygen-breathing apparatus and visits her sister in another wing of the hospital, evidently suffering from one of those diseases that are always called "dread." The visit is distracting and pointless, until the movie approaches its end. I don't think I'll say more about the plot because there are surprises in it, some of which I couldn't get my head around.
I've always liked Denis Leary -- rough voice, nothing face -- because he reminds me of a guy I met in a bar just off Pershing Square the night before I was to make a long sea trip many moons ago. Both Irish, both from Worcester. Leary might have been a fork lift driver or had some job that left his hands black with grease. He's an appealing actor, if not a powerful one.
Hope Davis. Is that a WASP cognomen or what? She isn't striking at first. Her role as the psychiatrist who sheds some of her objectivity doesn't give her much wiggle room. But there is a wistful quality about her. She's a pretty blond with an endearing weak chin. Her features evoke an image of one of those little fishes just about to be eaten by a bigger fish. Yes, she could pass for a caregiver. Gradually, she and her character grow on you, and it's easy to see why Leary would become, not just fond of, but dependent on her by the very end.
In reality it's a pumped-up two- or three-person play. Nothing dramatic happens. Nobody's head gets torn off. And the introduction, Act I, is sluggish. "Final" would have done nicely as an episode of "Alfred Hitchcock Presents." It's competently directed by Campbell Scott, George C.'s son.
From the beginning, I kept wanting to get up and walk away but Hope Davis' quirky nose, not the plot, kept me in my seat for an hour or so, and when Leary starts looking for "The Alexandria Quartet" in the hospital book store, the film more or less had me. I mean, after all, here is a quartet that isn't a rock group. On top of that, Leary wants Frost's "Swinger of Trees" read at his grave, poem I used to read to my kid when he was about eleven. It became imperative at that point that I find out what the hell was going on.