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Sue

1998, Movie, NR, 90 mins

Sue: Review

SUE
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This unremittingly grim and oddly uncompelling film, about a woman down on her luck in New York, attempts to be a serious character study, but winds up as flat as a day-old egg cream. Sue (Anna Thomson), a single woman in her late 30s, is not only unemployed and three months behind in her rent, she's unable to form romantic relationships that don't involve quick, cheap sex. Her desperation is almost palpable -- waiters and mothers with children flee in horror -- but she somehow manages to befriend tough-as-nails waitress/thief Lola (Tahnee Welch) and compassionate bartender Linda (Tracee Ross). Meanwhile, Sue's awkward attempts at picking up men net travel writer Ben (Matthew Powers), who falls for her. Unfortunately, Sue is a hair's breadth away from a breakdown and tries, unsuccessfully, to keep him at arm's length. When Ben is called away to India for a month, Sue finds and loses a temp job, is evicted, and begins a tragic downward spiral that includes prostitution. Israeli writer-director Amos Kollek has tried before to chronicle the Manhattan low life (WHORE 2, FOREVER LULU), with little success; this attempt is no better. The weak script culminates in a sudden, ridiculously pat ending, as if he'd run out of both film stock and ideas, and his lackluster direction and awkward, disjointed cuts sap the movie of any momentum. Welch delivers a little zip despite her outrageously cliched character (she looks as if she walked in from the set of MIDNIGHT COWBOY), but by the second reel, she has inexplicably disappeared. Thomson, whose unusual looks suggest Bette Davis on a bad day, gives a cold, one-note performance and is unconvincing as a woman in such torment. But ultimately it's Kollek's clumsiness that deprives the audience of any possible emotional connection with Sue, making what could have been a thoughtful, poignant film into a dull, rambling mess. leave a comment --Steve Noveck
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