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Movies / On DVD / Morvern Callar
Morvern Callar

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Morvern Callar (2002)

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Reviews Counted:23

Fresh:21

Rotten:2

Average Rating:7.4/10

Consensus: Morton quietly makes this quirky, enigmatic mood piece a compelling watch.

Rated: Not Rated

Runtime: 1 hr 37 mins

Genre: Dramas

Theatrical Release:Dec 20, 2002 Limited

Synopsis: The role of the aimless young rebel hiding behind an emotional wall and steely eyes has been monopolized by men in the movies since James Dean. Samantha Morton, one of her generation's most gifted... The role of the aimless young rebel hiding behind an emotional wall and steely eyes has been monopolized by men in the movies since James Dean. Samantha Morton, one of her generation's most gifted actors, makes the most of her opportunity to embody such a figure in her role as the title character of MORVERN CALLAR. Momentarily frozen by the suicide of her boyfriend, Morvern mines two words from his brief suicide note: be brave. Finally removing his body from the apartment floor, she buries her boyfriend, pocketing the funeral money he left. She also courts publishers, claiming authorship of the novel he left behind as his legacy. Her new financial freedom and sense of mortality brings Morvern, joined by her coworker Lana (Kathleen McDermott), out of her bleak surroundings to a Spanish resort where the two are surrounded by fellow clubbers. Lynne Ramsay (RATCATCHER) evokes emotion through landscape as Morvern and Lana flee the dreary Scottish winter for a Spanish coastal town bathed in sunlight. Working from Alan Warner's novel, Ramsay uses powerful imagery and a soundtrack vacillating between contemplative silence, abrasive sound effects, and hip music to create a purely cinematic work, avoiding the trappings of an adaptation. [More]

Starring: Samantha Morton, Kathleen McDermott, Linda McGuire, Duncan McHardy

Starring: Samantha Morton, Kathleen McDermott, Linda McGuire, Duncan McHardy, Dolly Wells, Jim Wilson

Director: Lynne Ramsay

Director: Lynne Ramsay
Screenwriter: Lynne Ramsay, Liana Dognini
Producer: George Faber, Charles Pattinson, Robyn Slovo
Studio: Cowboy Pictures

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Release:

Nov 30, 1999

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Reviews for Morvern Callar

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1 - 20 (sorted by date)
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Full Review Source: Houston Chronicle | comment Comment
07/21/05
Houston Chronicle
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Morton finds a wealth of nuance in anomie and neurasthenia.

Full Review Source: Arizona Republic | comment Comment
07/19/03
Richard Nilsen
Richard Nilsen
Arizona Republic
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A mesmerizing conundrum of a suspended life in perpetual motion.

Full Review Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution | comment Comment
07/16/03
Eleanor Ringel Gillespie
Eleanor Ringel Gillespie
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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A film about youthful confusion made without a moment of artistic immaturity or indecision.

Full Review Source: Minneapolis Star Tribune | comment Comment
06/05/03
Colin Covert
Colin Covert
Minneapolis Star Tribune
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With little dialogue to assist her -- just the strains of that wonderfully organic music -- [Morton] still manages to suggest the internal struggle, and to slowly reveal a fierce toughness that flies in the face of conventional morality.

Full Review Source: Globe and Mail | comment Comment
05/30/03
Rick Groen
Rick Groen
Globe and Mail
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Maintains your sympathy for this otherwise challenging soul by letting you share her one-room world for a while.

Full Review Source: Toronto Star | comment Comment
05/30/03
Geoff Pevere
Geoff Pevere
Toronto Star
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Even if both films are about accidental sinners, Morvern Callar turns out to be a very different, and more difficult, film than Ratcatcher.

Full Review Source: Boston Globe | comment Comment
04/18/03
Ty Burr
Ty Burr
Boston Globe
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

As opaque as the movie is, it's redeemed by Ms. Morton's superb, disaffected performance.

Full Review Source: Dallas Morning News | comment Comment
04/10/03
Gary Dowell
Gary Dowell
Dallas Morning News
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Appealing? Not exactly. But Morvern Callar ... is a strange and evocative work that's not easy to dismiss.

Full Review Source: Denver Rocky Mountain News | comment Comment
03/28/03
Robert Denerstein
Robert Denerstein
Denver Rocky Mountain News
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Exceptionally moving.

Full Review Source: Philadelphia Inquirer | comment Comment
03/20/03
Carrie Rickey
Carrie Rickey
Philadelphia Inquirer
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As Morvern, [Morton is] disconcertingly enigmatic, often bordering on catatonic. But she carries the movie effortlessly.

Full Review Source: Washington Post | comment Comment
02/21/03
Desson Thomson
Desson Thomson
Washington Post
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Ramsay and Morton fill this character study with poetic force and buoyant feeling.

Full Review Source: Rolling Stone | comment Comment
01/31/03
Peter Travers
Peter Travers
Rolling Stone
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Too often mistaking obscurity for complexity and moodiness for depth, director Lynn Ramsay squanders an intriguing premise and a layered performance by Samantha Morton.

Full Review Source: Detroit News | comment Comment
01/31/03
Tom Long
Tom Long
Detroit News
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We watch Samantha Morton so closely, with such fascination, because she is able to embody a universe of wounded privacy.

Full Review Source: Chicago Sun-Times | comment Comment
01/31/03
Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Chicago Sun-Times
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Ramsay, as in Ratcatcher, remains a filmmaker with an acid viewpoint and a real gift for teasing chilly poetry out of lives and settings that might otherwise seem drab and sordid.

Full Review Source: Chicago Tribune | comment Comment
01/30/03
Michael Wilmington
Michael Wilmington
Chicago Tribune
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Strange, moody film that could easily have seemed like a willful wallow in the macabre but for the odd truth of Morton's performance and the psychologically penetrating direction of Lynne Ramsay.

Full Review Source: San Francisco Chronicle | comment Comment
01/17/03
Mick LaSalle
Mick LaSalle
San Francisco Chronicle
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The director, Lynne Ramsey, works in the tony austere style of Catherine Breillat and Claire Denis.

Full Review Source: Entertainment Weekly | comment Comment
01/10/03
Owen Gleiberman
Owen Gleiberman
Entertainment Weekly
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A work of astonishing delicacy and force.

Full Review Source: Salon.com | comment Comment
12/20/02
Stephanie Zacharek
Stephanie Zacharek
Salon.com
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Flashy, pretentious and as impenetrable as Morvern's thick, working-class Scottish accent.

Full Review Source: Newsday | comment Comment
12/20/02
Jan Stuart
Jan Stuart
Newsday
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The wonderfully lush Morvern Callar is pure punk existentialism, and Ms. Ramsay and her co-writer, Liana Dognini, have dramatized the Alan Warner novel, which itself felt like an answer to Irvine Welsh's book Trainspotting.

Full Review Source: New York Times | comment Comment
12/20/02
Elvis Mitchell
Elvis Mitchell
New York Times
Top Critic Icon Top Critic
 
 
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