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Cherish - 6/7/02 - R - 99m
Robin Tunney
- Zoe
Tim Blake Nelson - Daly
Jason Priestly - Andrew
Director: Finn Taylor
JEF
DVD Review -
A gem of a movie…
Thanks to a friend of mine who told me about this movie. (Thanks T). I
don’t know why, but this movie slipped through the Hollywood cracks.
It’s now out on DVD, and I encourage you to go out and rent this
one. This is one of those diamonds in the rough. After seeing movies with
the same storylines done over and over, along comes a movie like this
one that gets you fired up about “independent movies”.
Storyline: Zoe (Robin Tunney) is a somewhat eccentric
character. She works in a computer animation company, and doesn’t
quite fit in. Through an odd set of circumstances (which is believable)
she falls under house arrest. One of those “anklets” that
requires a person to remain in their house, rather than spend time in
jail. While under house arrest, and awaiting trial, she is forced to deal
with many circumstances. One of course is being “trapped”
in a large 1-2 bedroom apartment, in a rough neighborhood. She faces moments
of self-discovery while being in an almost solitary confinement. She eventually
establishes her own little world of contacts under these circumstances;
the gay, Jewish, little person who resides in the apartment below hers,
the kids in the street, the Russian couple in the apartment above her,
etc… through out the entire movie, she’s struggling to figure
out a way to prove her innocence. Along the way she also develops a sort
of romantic interest in one of her captures, Daly (Tim Blake Nelson),
who is the police officer in charge of monitoring her anklet, or rather
he develops an interest in her.
I’ve been somewhat vague in the description above so as not to ruin
anything. But I’ve tried to include enough of the sort of oddities
in the movie to let you know this is a movie with many interesting characters.
I did find a few things that bothered me technically speaking. But these
are tiny things that really don’t affect the story. One example
is that when Zoe gets her anklet on, the police measure the distance to
the doorway at 57’, and how the monitoring unit is very sensitive.
Then later she’s shown standing just outside her door. Another story
element that was sort of dropped was the rose garden on the roof? Was
there? Again these are small nit-picky details.
Finally, the movie centers on an awesome 80’s soundtrack. At first
it was somewhat confusing as I thought this was the device used to set
the time period, but then later I realized it was set in modern day times,
and the soundtrack was just a soundtrack.
Ok, one more thing… there were quite a few supporting actors and
actresses in this movie; Tim Blake Nelson “O Brother Where Art Thou”,
Lindsay Crouse, Jason Priestly, Brad Hunt, and Nora Dunn (from Saturday
Night Live).
Go rent this movie, for a nice breath of fresh air out of Hollywood. Shame
on the theaters for not showing this movie, and New Line for not promoting
this movie properly.
Jef
PS> As far as DVD features, don't expect too much. There is one 6 second cut scene, and an alternate ending. There is a nice featurette with a a "behind the scenes". This was entertaining as well.