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Blue Car

Blue Car (2002)

tomatometer

91

Average Rating: 7.2/10
Critic Reviews: 35
Fresh: 32 | Rotten: 3

A cautionary tale that rings true.

audience

64

liked it
Average Rating: 3.4/5
User Ratings: 2,422

My Rating

Movie Info

The coming-of-age drama Blue Car is the directorial debut feature from actress Karen Moncrieff. Played by newcomer Agnes Bruckner, quiet high school student Meg lives in an apartment complex where she takes care of her troubled little sister, Lily (Regan Arnold), while her emotionally unavailable mom (Margaret Colin) is busy at work or school. Since her dad left, the family has been under financial strain and Lily suffers from starvation, delusions, and self mutilation. Meg maintains a calm

R,

Drama

Karen Moncrieff

Oct 14, 2003

$0.4M

Miramax Films - Official Site External Icon

Cast

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All Critics (95) | Top Critics (37) | Fresh (69) | Rotten (16) | DVD (5)

Moncrieff grabs us with details and dialogue so authentic ... that she often makes us feel as if we're standing on our toes and peering in the window of one of our neighbors.

July 11, 2003 Full Review Source: Sacramento Bee
Sacramento Bee
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Worth watching for the coming-out party of Agnes Bruckner, a relative newcomer who shows her mettle with an extraordinary performance in this very ordinary tear-jerker.

June 12, 2003
Arizona Republic
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An impressive first effort from Ms. Moncrieff, but the eternal Aristotelian in me finds it depressing to watch characters always walking around in moral quicksand.

June 11, 2003 Full Review Source: New York Observer
New York Observer
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A well-intentioned coming-of-age film anchored by two indelible performances but weakened by an overabundance of drama.

May 30, 2003 Full Review Source: Miami Herald
Miami Herald
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The film is strengthened by the two leading performances.

May 28, 2003
The New Republic
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We've seen this unhappy scenario played out many times before, but seldom with a better eye for detail.

May 23, 2003
Washington Post
Top Critic IconTop Critic

...falters because it hews too closely to the witless cant of the average guy as a potential sex criminal.

January 7, 2005 Full Review Source: Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

Though the story is fragile, Bruckner's superlative acting registers Meg's feelings with the dead-on accuracy of an emotional geiger counter.

February 9, 2004 Full Review Source: Boulder Weekly

Vivid performances . . . the film's warmly luminous look and the richly rendered view of a troubled but talented teen's struggles with the adult world sustain the film.

December 1, 2003
Vue Weekly (Edmonton, Canada)

Cuts both ways: the poetry and the acting were hot, the story and the cinematography were not so hot.

October 23, 2003 Full Review Source: Ozus' World Movie Reviews
Ozus' World Movie Reviews

I found this movie fascinating -- but not an easy one to sit through. It's seems excruciatingly real.

September 27, 2003 Full Review Source: ReelTalk Movie Reviews
ReelTalk Movie Reviews

At the film's center Bruckner more than holds her own, beautifully capturing the anger, uncertainty and yearnings of an unhappy kid impatient for her 'real' life to begin.

September 12, 2003 Full Review Source: Kansas City Star
Kansas City Star

Moncrieff, though seemingly incapable of lacing a story with surprises, writes snappy dialogue.

July 18, 2003 Full Review Source: Arizona Daily Star
Arizona Daily Star

The truest depiction I have ever seen on film of how children grow up with divorced parents. Hollywood blockbuster hype notwithstanding, this is actually the must-see movie of the summer.

July 15, 2003 Full Review Source: Offoffoff
Offoffoff

Painful to watch, yet it never sinks to melodrama.

July 14, 2003 Full Review Source: Sacramento News & Review
Sacramento News & Review

Blue Car boasts great talent in Bruckner, Straithairn and Moncrieff... [but] that talent isn't enough to get over the obstacles in the movie's second half.

July 2, 2003 Full Review Source: Salt Lake Tribune
Salt Lake Tribune

borrows heavily from her television soap experience but doesn't collapse totally into the banal

June 27, 2003 Full Review Source: ToxicUniverse.com
ToxicUniverse.com

Audience Reviews for Blue Car

Karen Moncrieff is the best American filmmaker you've never heard of. It's ridiculous that her work is so little talked about. "Blue Car," her first film, at times borders on greatness. It drifts into pretentiousness and preciousness one too many times, but for a filmmaker to get close to greatness her first time out is nothing short of amazing. (Moncrieff, I should point out, got even closer to greatness with her second film, the bizarrely under-rated "The Dead Girl," which I consider the second-best film of 2006, after Darren Aronofsky's "The Fountain.")

"Blue Car" tells a delicate story of an exceptionally bright teenage girl cast adrift by a self-absorbed mother who barely notices when she's in the room. The girl retreats into herself, explores sad memories of being abandoned by her father, and ends up penning poetry that dazzles and frightens her intelligent but lonely English teacher (played beautifully by David Strathairn.)

He volunteers to coach her after school to develop her poetry even further, and so begins a journey that sometimes is too beautiful and too painful for both of them. The film gets sidetracked into a separate drama concerning the girl's younger sister, which weakens the film and makes its sadness a bit over-thick. But the journey of discovery that the girl and man go on is at times the stuff of great literature. Actress Agnes Bruckner gives a breakthrough performance as the girl, and it is beyond belief that she wasn't nominated for an Oscar. Her work is so good that I venture to say that hers is the best teenage acting performance of the decade.

"Blue Car" helps to remind us how life-changing and essential friendships between teenagers and adults can be -- but also how overwhelming and destabilizing they can be. As tough as these relationships are -- for both parties -- they are often the crucible in which new life, and new art, is born.
November 25, 2009
Bill D 2007
William Dunmyer

Super Reviewer

Okay, so are all English teachers this, uh, disturb . . ed . . . ing? Let us hope not. Yikes! David, you are well-done creepy here, buddy. Yes, quite an unsettling performance from David Strathairn as the, uh, overly supportive English teacher. No doubt, however, that this is Bruckner's film. A very genuine emotional portrayal of a young woman struggling to cope with -- and because of -- her dysfunctional family.
October 20, 2006
binky013

Super Reviewer

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