The static living arrangement between three lonely souls living in a rural Mississippi Delta township is suddenly shaken up due to a tragic suicide in this intimate family drama from first-time writer/director Lance Hammer. Single mother Marley was barely getting by when her 12-year-old son James fell into a dangerous cycle of drugs and violence. Desperate to escape her current surroundings and save her son from becoming another statistic, Marley seeks safe harbor at a home on the property of
Lawrence -- a man with whom she has been locked into a bitter feud ever since the birth of her son. Brought together by circumstance and left with little choice but to work through their hardships, Marley, James, and Lawrence do their best to move beyond the grief that has befallen them, and transform tragedy into the foundation for a new and hopeful future. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
Ballast lacks ballast. Much praised by aficionados of minimalist indie cinema -- hey, who needs a plot when you've got mood? -- it's a wearying slog through anomie in a Mississippi Delta township.
This austere, rigorous film has a sense of place, a feeling for reality so compelling it makes us feel like we're living it, not just watching on a screen.
With debut director Lance Hammer admirably holding on to his core values in a way that directors too easy to deliver a crowd-pleaser do not, this is a fine, low-budget independent film...
Hammer manages to do enough with his actors and his nuanced script to make this exploration of the way even disparate people can provide stability for one another seem surprisingly engaging.
A hugely impressive, distinctive directorial debut and a compellingly humanist window onto a layer of American society that mainstream cinema likes to pretend doesn't exist.
This airy, quiet meditation on the struggle of three people to transcend abject poverty and unexpected loss will likely play as too dialled-down for many tastes, but persevering with it will reveal a rare, peculiar mystical quality...
Quite a debut here from writer-director Lance Hammer, working on a minuscule budget in the Mississippi Delta, and evoking a memorably forlorn kind of regional specificity.
Drugs, guns, attempted suicide. The Mississippi Delta is a watercolour landscape in duns and half-colours. Black poverty is turned over like the underside of the American dream.
Although the film never fulfils the promise of its elliptical, mysterious opening - the drama occasionally lacks momentum as it proceeds towards some sort of resolution - there's no denying its intelligence, compassion and assurance.
This movie is from Kino International which carries the best in world cinema. Its also a winner of the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. As with most Films from Kino International this film is a little different from most, if your idea of a good movie is Batman, Superman, Talladega Nights or something else common to
American movie theaters then you will not enjoy this movie, but if your a fan of something a little less common and different then you will enjoy this one as I did. This is about 3 lost souls in the Mississippi Delta who come together through a suicide. Worth every bit of 4 stars
April 20, 2010
Bruce Bruce
Super Reviewer
I liked the film a lot, but felt that there was something missing. So many things happen in the first half of the film that it;s a little jarring. As you keep watching, you understand why all those things happened, but the film moves at a much, slower pace. That was the thing that I liked about the film the most. It
reverses the usual everything is good until the end where everything suddenly becomes terrible indie film plot and turns it on it's head. I will say that the actors (except for the mother character) are sub par, but it's understandable and it doesn't take anything away from the movie. The film looks gorgeous and I liked the ending, but I might have been expecting something different. Great use of Mississippi landscapes.
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