White Reindeer

source: White Reindeer

source: White Reindeer

Jeff and Suzanne seem to be happy living in Virginia near Christmas time. Jeff has a new job starting in January, and they enjoy each other's company deeply. Suzanne comes home one day before Christmas to find Jeff on the floor with his head bashed in. The police investigation seems rather light and inept at the beginning. Things pick up a bit after Suzanne starts combing through the files and web addresses on Jeff's computer. Suzanne decides to meet some of the girls that Jeff knew. Fantasia is one of the dancers. Suzanne starts into shoplifting, as well as cocaine use. Neither of these serves her well. Her old set of friends prove to be less normal afterward. Eventually, though, she starts to get information about Jeff's secret life: lap dances, cocaine use, and his other love interests. Her excursion into getting to know the neighbors is not too damaging. Then again, it was not beneficial for Suzanne. Does Suzanne connect the dots? Does she seek help with the police? Will she survive the neighbors, or her Internet Christmas-sadness buying spree? -----Scores----- Cinematography: 5/10 From overexposure to underexposure to faux blondes to terrible makeup, the sets and lighting were poor. Sound: 7/10 The actors were miked OK. The incidental music was crappy, but then again, that's pretty much what the story was about: crappy situations. Acting: 4/10 I almost liked the performance of Anna Margaret Hollyman, but not any of the many others. Screenplay: 4/10 There was nothing funny about this film. It should not be billed as a comedy.

This is not a comedy. This is not a dark comedy. This is not a black comedy. This is not a drama, a dramedy or anything. This is a vacuum bubble. A nothing, a blank wall. This is the feel nothing movie of the year not good or bad or tragic. A null. A women who has a tragedy in her life before Christmas. She jumps right over grief to catatonia. She discovers the people in her life all have secret lives and discovers she doesn't have a life or any existence of her own. She has zero response to everything. The only excitement in her life is throwing up. I guess that's something. Anyway there's sex and drugs and shoplifting, strippers, swingers and people who are really really ugly naked. And none of it registers or matters in the least.

I have given a spoiler alert as a safety measure because just about anything about the story in this movie will be a kind of spoiler. First of all, although this is listed as a comedy, it is not. It is a drama, thoughtful and measured and at times sad, with a few funny moments. At the heart of the movie is Anna Margaret Hollyman as Suzanne Barrington, a woman living a low key but happy life, and whose life is completely turned around by a terrible event a month from Christmas. Hollyman is amazing in this role as she barely reacts to all manner of strange situations and actually delivers a great deal in the process. I thought she was absolutely sensational, and I will definitely be seeking out her other movies. All the cast is good, the story - while maybe a bit improbable - is engrossing and the whole production punches well above it's indie weight. Zack Clark has written and directed a great "little" movie here, and I hope he continues in the same vein. And watch out for Anna Margaret Hollyman, she has massive star potential.

Awful. That's really it. To elaborate: depressing, icky, gross, disgusting, pointless, not fun. A waste of my time. I kept watching because it is labeled "comedy" and I was trying to understand why. Never got there. Nothing funny. I also kept waiting for her to commit suicide. That would have been a relief. 10 lines of text required, so here goes. This review was not intended to contain a spoiler alert but one cannot write 10 lines about it without revealing: that movies containing vomit scenes (more than once, I might add) are automatically NOT FUNNY. There were plenty of revealing sex scenes but they were not enjoyable because the main character was miserable throughout. If this movie were only billed as something other than comedy, it would have had an appropriate audience, and I would not have watched it when looking for a FREAKIN' COMEDY.

Despite its title and being set over the 24 days before Christmas, 2013 indie "White Reindeer" is a bizarre, dark, morose, miserable & ultimately confusing affair... that's not at all Christmassy! When her successful husband's randomly shot dead, modest, middle-class, Xmas-lover Ann Margaret Hollyman (good) finds out her perfect man had had an affair with * Laura Lemar-Goldsborough... and she goes quietly off the rails: partying hard with Lemar-Goldsborough & pals; shoplifting; binge shopping online; orgying with neighbours; etc. Writer / director Zach Clark appears to have aimed for an off-beat depiction of grief, but it's just all rather pointless. Flush it.

What you need to know ahead of any spoilers, you can pretty much surmise the "adult nature" of some scenes from the cover of a Christmas tree made out of lines of cocaine. The plot will still surprise you, but you'll have a warning. Also, do not watch this movie with your in-laws and probably not your parents either. It's an independent movie and while the lead actress is great and the camera is close on her face for what seems like most of the movie; she carries it off. Some scenes start with that awkward pause that happens in low budget movies, like the actors are still waiting for their cue. Sets are sparsely decorated and all shot on location in small homes, etc. The pacing and transition could have been better. It seemed to jump from scene to scene and many scenes suffer from a lack of a second camera angle. If all that puts you off, then don't watch this one. If you are looking for some originality in storytelling do watch. Another strong point is the sense of place. I've lived in Northern Virginia and even Crystal City briefly and the movie captures not just the suburban nature, but the specific Southern, East Coast conservative style of the area. **SPOILERS** The lead character prefers dressing in beige, loves to shop, sells real estate, takes comfort in decorating for the holidays, and it would have been so easy to create a stereotype of a naive and uptight person. The shock value of the sex and drugs would have been even greater, but I think that would have been a much more simplistic movie. Instead we don't think of her wild behavior as a reaction to some repressed urges, but as part of whatever her grief process is. Maybe her actions are hard to understand, but not impossible. Also, I wanted more scenes with the news anchor and her husband. They were out way too soon. Overall, the originality of the lead character and the fact that the emotional focus of the story did not get lost in the craziness of the scenes overcomes its lack of production values.

***Pre-Review Warning: on the off-chance some well-meaning parent looking to entertain their children around X-Mas will, because of the title, stick this in the DVD and then disappear to go shopping, I feel compelled to point out THIS IS NOT THAT KIND OF MOVIE!! ^^^ (... review begins here...) The key to this film may be -- I am not sure -- the "thank yous" at the very end for the "kickstarters". I have seen a lot of films, perhaps more than I care to admit to, but this is unusual. Therefore (and apologies if I got this wrong) it looks to me like the Director/Writer is trying to make the jump from Editor (ie, employee) to Producer (employer) and, to accomplish this enterprise, has taken to heart the old adage, if you can't get $10,000.00 from one person, then get $1 from 10,000 people (or something similar, do the math yourself). So, bottom line, what exactly do we have here? Best I can figure, writer/director Zach Clark has taken upon himself, without any outside help (CLEARLY without outside help) the momentous task of de-constructing X-Mas. The story is about a young wife in her early thirties who is married to the weatherman for the local station. They have a superficially good marriage, adequate sex, she loves him, he has just got a job in Hawaii and her life is about to change. But unfortunately not in the way she expects. Coming home from X-Mas shopping, she finds hubby mysteriously (and graphically) dead from what looks like a robbery gone wrong, and she spends the rest of the film in a downward spiral of self-discovery (and the aforesaid X-Mas deconstruction) as a superimposed-on-screen "___ DAYS BEFORE X-MAS" timer counts down, perhaps as a teaching aid for those who may otherwise be missing the point. (A category which I suspect may include most of the "kickstarter" team). The rest of the story is taken up with the revelation that hubby had a black *-mistress, spending money for the sake of feeling better until there is no more; getting to know the Swingers next door; and the revelation that the wife may be pregnant. (If I got any of this wrong, write me, Tweet me, or just think really strong thoughts and I promise to pick them out of the Ether). The direction is promising, surprisingly, and with a better script and actors, might have actually resulted in a better movie. However since the Director is also the Writer, he will no doubt have to have a long talk with himself about that. The acting - well, er, except for Anna Margaret Hollyman, who comes across as genuinely fresh and interesting (and could in the Real World have carried a film similar to this entirely on her own) the rest of the cast seems to be volunteers or extras or (is this even legal?) extra-volunteers who may possibly have paid or "kickstarted" for the privilege of being in the film. Or so it seems. **Factoid: within 2 hrs of posting this review, 5 people coincidentally flagged it as "not useful," which is more people than there are actual leads in the film. X-Files anyone?**

This story just happens to take place during the Christmas season ! ! It is not a Christmas story for family viewing during the holidays - and thank 'Gawd' for that. Forget the reviews that can't seem to grasp this important element of the plot. This is a story that makes a wonderful statement about how Christmas is seen as all happiness and bright lights and celebration. Christmas is something we do - nobody lives the message. People still live their public and private life. People are seldom what they seem to be and that is the story of this film. It is all about Suzanne Barrington's journey in learning this lesson. Suzanne is innocent. She thinks all is well with her marriage and her husband is the wonderful man he is when with her. After the "tragedy" Suzanne discovers all is not happiness and bright lights with her husband. And since she loved him she goes on a journey into his secret life to try to understand the man she was married to. How could he be all sweetness and surprises when with her yet at the same time have a * pole dancer drug user as his mistress. The only way Suzanne can gain insight into her husband's mind is to go live his secret life. This she cannot do because she is not him! Suzanne also learns another truth about her sweet as sugar neighbors, and tries to fit in but she cannot! This story is all Suzanne's journey into trying to find her place in life after too many ugly truths fall upon her at a time of year when beauty and hope and false illusion surround all of us. This is fine cinema and fine acting by all ! !