Talk about a film which sets itself up to fail!
The two most tiresome types of characters in movies
are alcoholics and mental patients, and _Sybil_ has
both. The protagonist is a therapist who gets rid of
her patients to write a novel and ends up being roped
into babysitting an actress-patient on a movie set --
even directing a scene in her film. Linking creative
writing/movie-making to psychoanalysis (especially
Freudian) is a favorite theme of recent literature
academics, and normally I'd shoot myself in the head
before indulging them. But the film is actually
watchable, thanks to its star Virginie Efira, who
seems to be in every other French film but remains
unrecognized in the U.S. Sandra Huller, playing a movie
director, gives an even better, irrepressible, comic
performance. (Adele Exarchopoulos has been better
elsewhere -- she isn't quite manic enough to be
comedic or tragic -- and this is the late Gaspard
Ulliel's last film I believe ...) The cinematography
is decent, and the editing, which relies on many shock
cuts, mimics sudden recall of painful memories, or
maybe psychosis. It doesn't make for lucid story
telling. But _Sybil_ may boast the funniest
film-within-a-film sequences I have seen in a long
time. Watch it for Sandra Huller anyway.

---------------------------------------------------------

Naomi Watts is at her deglamorized best in _The Wolf
Hour_; one can argue this is her most memorable work
since _Mulholland Drive_! (Well she's really good in
_Ellie Parker_ and _Adore_ and _Mother and Child_ and
... lots of things too.) Unfortunately the film is
more about atmosphere and mood than story-telling
depth. The story, such as it is, concerns a few
days during a Bronx riot (in the 70s I think), and
the white woman in danger from black rioters motif
is a bit much. Bigelow's _Detroit_ this is not.
The big reveal is why this once successful author
holes up there, why she has had a mental breakdown.

Many of the supporting actors give good live-in
performances, especially Jennifer Ehle in her one
long scene. That's about all there is to it, but
it is more than enough if you are a fan of Ms. Watts.

--------------------------------------------------------

"Deglamorized" turns out to be a relative term. Watts
may be slumming in _The Wolf Hour_ and her apartment
is more desolate than her place of death in _Mulholland
Drive_, but she looks all of 26. In _Infinite Storm_,
highly recommended by Manhola Dargis, she is completely
transformed into someone the actress' own age but
incredibly fit. She plays a grieving mother who hikes
up mountains in New Hampshire during anniversaries of
her daughters' death. (Mountain hike is cheaper than
therapy, she would claim; too bad the people in _Sybil_
don't get this.) Early scenes where she hikes up the
mountain, falls down a hole, and wills herself back up,
are wonderful. Then she runs into and rescues a
zombie-like "John," and the film seems to focus more on
the male even more lost than she is. Watts is the
producer on this film based on the life of a mountain
rescue guide, but the star seems to be the director
Małgorzata Szumowska and the way she makes the
film in a snow storm. The cast is Anglo-American, the
crew is Polish, and the film is shot in Slovenia (one
hopes some of it is done in a set); while Watts is
convincing with her New Hampshire accent and her unplucked
eyelashes, you wish we get to see more of her without hat
and visor on -- like in _The Wolf Hour_ (which could be
the title of this film too).

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