CAPSULE REVIEWS - The corrupted innocent
Heather Graham's character Hope in the indie drama "Broken" is an aspiring (but you knew that from her name) Midwestern singer-songwriter who decamps to L.A. and summarily enters into a destructive, dope-fueled relationship with Jeremy Sisto's controlling jerk. (His name? What else -- Will.)
But it's pity for Graham, an actress with a casually complicated mixture of beauty and sadness, that overwhelms feelings for Hope, whose victimhood is presented purely as abstraction. That's because "Broken" is a pretentiously time-fragmented, tedious slog -- it starts with those names -- in which Hope is a waitress in a diner that over one late night becomes a prophetic limbo: The various customers (a just-signed singer, a prostitute, a substance-destroyed bag lady) clunkily represent life's options for our beleaguered heroine.
At one time, screenwriter Drew Pillsbury's Big Idea may have sounded like the freshest of takes on the corrupted innocent story, but nearly everything a movie needs to ground a character and engage a moviegoer seems to have been forsaken on the way from conception to execution. Not only that, director Alan White crams in "if you didn't get it by now" elements, like a flash montage in which Graham actually appears as Hope's future incarnations, and the introduction of a film producer character who pushes Hope to do an obviously shady film called "Broken." (Too late for Graham to say no, unfortunately.)
"Canvas": The review of "Canvas" in Friday's Calendar section said the film was rated R for drug use, strong sexuality, violence and pervasive language. That rating was for a 1992 film with the same title. The "Canvas" that opened Friday is rated PG-13 for mature thematic elements.
-- Robert Abele
"Broken." MPAA: R for drug use, strong sexuality, violence and pervasive language. Running time: 1 hour, 37 minutes. At Laemmle's Sunset 5, 8000 Sunset Blvd. (323) 848-3500.
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Sketchy direction and a bland plot
A sincere, slow-paced drama about a Florida family dealing with schizophrenia, "Canvas" is never terribly convincing, despite being inspired by writer-director Joseph Greco's life growing up with a mentally ill mother.
Unlike the far superior "Away From Her," which also concerned the domestic consequences of a woman's brain disorder (in that case, Alzheimer's disease), "Canvas" isn't probing, unique or poignant enough to sustain interest. It's a bland memory piece whose saving grace is Greco's good fortune to nab pros such as Marcia Gay Harden and Joe Pantoliano to play the schizophrenic Mary Marino and her devoted husband, John. However, as the couple's sensitive son, Chris, Devon Gearhart works hard but could have used more precise direction.
