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Alma

2000, Movie, NR, 94 mins

Alma: Review

ALMA
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Enthralling, darkly funny, horrifying and hopeful, this documentary examines the relationship between vivacious, 36-year-old Margie Thorpe and her blowsy, 56-year-old mother, Alma, both of whom live in the same small Alabama town. Singer/bartender/raconteuse Margie at first seems overly troubled by ordinary-sounding childhood experiences; what youngster makes it to adulthood without ever being embarrassed by something a parent said, did or wore? Alma, meanwhile, at first appears to hail from a long tradition of Southern eccentrics, but it's soon apparent that she's stepped over the line dividing idiosyncrasy and insanity. And then there's the business of the doors never being closed when Margie was a child — not even the doors to the bathroom or the bedroom. Like her daughter, Alma (who slightly resembles actress Sylvia Miles) is a born storyteller, but almost all her stories hinge on the consequences of her troublesome "sex emotions" — except the ones in which she's accusing her late mother of predatory lesbianism or asserting that the pre-adolescent Margie tried to seduce Alma's boyfriends (a charge that echoes Alma's assertion that she seduced her own uncle when she was only seven). Given the sexual anxiety that drives almost all Alma's recollections, Margie's wry, post-family reunion lament that "every single person I'm related to is a comical pervert," doesn't seem exaggerated. Despite her deeply conflicted feelings about her parents, particularly the demanding Alma, Margie can't bring herself to cut all ties with them, no matter how difficult they are. Some deep-rooted sense of responsibility forces her to keep dealing with Alma's many troubles, which include getting arrested for making "terroristic threats" against her next-door neighbor and pointing a BB gun at the police. The rare scenes in which we get a glimpse of the damage done to Margie by her tumultuous childhood are among the film's most moving. leave a comment --Maitland McDonagh
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