A woman who has drifted away from her boyfriend's affections finds love in the arms of his son in this independent drama. Laura (Dina Korzun) is an attractive woman in her early thirties who was living in her native Russia when she met Alan James (Rip Torn), a legendary music producer from Memphis. Alan brought Laura back to the United States and moved in with her, but now that the couple have a three-year-old son, Laura finds herself a stranger in the city she now calls home and is growing
increasingly distant from the philandering Alan. After a testimonial tribute to Alan, Laura meets his grown son Michael (Darren E. Burrows) for the first time; Michael has a difficult and sometimes combative relationship with Alan and prefers to keep a distance from him and his life, but Michael and Laura find they quickly develop a strong rapport. Laura and Michael's friendship soon grows into an affair, but as Laura considers her unhappiness with Alan, she also feels guilty about betraying a man who has given her a life she would hardly have dared to dream of when she was younger. Forty Shades of Blue was helmed by Ira Sachs (who earned enthusiastic reviews for his 1997 debut feature The Delta), from a script he co-wrote with Michael Rohatyn. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
Ira Sachs' story of hereditary malaise, passed from father to son, will disappoint anyone looking for a propulsive narrative or slam-bang excitement. But it will amply reward patient viewers who prefer a slow burn.
The 13 minutes of deleted scenes would, if restored, add little to the film's overall coherence - but the same might be said of many of the scenes that made the final cut.
Korzun . . . is a non-presence, a brittle facade . . . a sketchy screenplay [adds up to] Zero Depths of Feeling . . . a flat, tasteless, faux-Euromance.
A gorgeously grim portrait of regrets and lost opportunities, Ira Sach's tender and heartbreaking drama is supremely subtle in how it emotionally flays its characters to lay bare their unspoken anguish...
A cantankerous music star's son visits for an awards ceremony then has an affair with his father's young wife.The highlight of this film is Dina Korzun's morose and oftentimes inscrutable performance; the few moments when her vulnerability shows through - crying in bed after having sex with her husband as an example -
are captivating. The film's success, aside from her performance, is the mere creation of a mood, a consistent melancholy that becomes overbearing at times.Indeed, I thought the film was often too morose, too languid. And Rip Torn's character - not necessarily a fault to his performance - was inconsistent. For the first half of the film, he is an indomitable and harsh force, but he suddenly becomes human in the second act, and what once was reminiscent of James Coburn in Affliction turns into a gnarly mess of storytelling. And it can shove its freeze-frame ending up its ass.Overall, Forty Shades of Blue is a performance-driven art film that has damning inconsistencies.
September 19, 2011
Jim Hunter
Super Reviewer
Fabulous little indie film that concentrates on the kind of character who you usually only glimpse and then forget about in most films: in this case a Russian lover to a much older American man. The performances from Dina Korzun, Rip Torn and Darren Burrows are all Oscar worthy, and the film won the Grand Jury Prize at
Sundance. The photography is superb too - this is well worth a look and I can't wait for Ira Sachs next film...
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