Morvern Callar (2002)
Genre: Drama
Duration: 97 minuten
Country:
United Kingdom
Directed by: Lynne Ramsay
Stars: Samantha Morton, Kathleen McDermott and Des Hamilton
IMDb score:
6,8 (12.336)
Releasedate: 1 November 2002
Morvern Callar plot
When 21-year-old Morvern Callar (Samantha Morton) wakes up on Christmas morning, she finds her boyfriend with severed wrists on the kitchen floor. Her boyfriend leaves Morvern a Walkman with a compilation cassette, a well-filled bank account and a book he wrote on a floppy disk - with a directory of publishers. Morvern takes her chance almost emotionlessly. To escape her hopeless existence in the Scottish hamlet of Oban and her job as a stocker in the local supermarket, she sends the book to the publishers under her own name. Meanwhile, the action moves from grim Scotland to Spain, where Morvern and her best friend Lanna take a wild vacation full of sex and drugs. The solid soundtrack with music from Velvet Underground, among others, comes from her boyfriend's walkman, which Morvern listens to throughout the film.
Actors and actresses
Morvern Callar
Lanna Phimister
Boy in Room 1022
Dazzer
Tequila Sheila
Welcoming Courier
Guy with Hat's Mate
Gypsy Taxi Driver
Overdose
Him
Reviews & comments
Woland
-
- 4809 messages
- 3825 votes
I was curious to see what Lynne Ramsay would make of this. I read the book a while ago, and I didn't really like it that much - Morvern is a bit like the typical British chavvy bimbo type, but mainly a fantasy version made by a dirty middle-aged man (lots of sex, drugs, too stupid to shit but still a refined taste in music from exactly the kind of artists he likes), and not a flesh-and-blood person. On top of that, the story doesn't really flow very logically, although part of the point is that Morvern is a psychopath who lives in the moment. And I also have mixed experiences with Lynne Ramsay - I thought We Need to Talk About Kevin was pretty good, but You Were Never Really Here was a lot less appealing to me.
As a film, well, it's sometimes nice but not much more than that. The music is cool, Morvern and her friend Lanna are nice, but I still find it a chaotic, incoherent story in which I simply don't believe the character Morvern as a real person. Not even as a grieving, confused, impulsive Scottish sociopath. Still, enough happens in the film (that's the advantage of jumping from topic to topic in terms of story), and it looks nice enough to still come close to a pass. Now let's hope that Ratcatcher really hits the mark.
Translated from Dutch · View original
Filmkriebel
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- 10012 messages
- 4678 votes
Bof was about nothing... Visually very enjoyable again from Ramsey but as a film this had little to say. By the way, that Morvern Callar doesn't have all five in a row: the indifference and unemotionalness with which she experiences the days after the suicide of her boyfriend do not match "normal" human emotions that you would have. That interview with the two publishers of the book also really made no sense... not even going into the content of the book... . And then there's a vague, non-functional disco scene somewhere in between... No, this is really on the edge of a bad film about a marginal character that did little for me. I give the 2.5* purely on the visual aspect... sometimes nicely trippy on screen. But as a Lynn Ramsey film (I gave all her other films 4 or 4.5*) this was a disappointment.
Translated from Dutch · View original
flaphead
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- 852 messages
- 982 votes
Different. Nicely unusual film in style. I like an opening scene like that. I like it when characters act a bit strange while they seem normal. There are beautiful natural scenes, like at the party. As soon as the silences are replaced by the soundtrack of the walkman, it is nicely woven in. Even 2x Aphex Twin, although that did not come from the walkman.
The friendship story and Morvern's behavior may be a bit less, the giggling of the girls also starts to get annoying at some point. It feels more fragmented than a real story, sometimes it's a kind of fever dream, like the taxi ride to the village. It goes slowly and you have to be able to handle it all, but in a strange way you still got stuck in it. (6.5)
Translated from Dutch · View original
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