{Cracks in the Shell screens at SIFF May 18, 9:30pm at Pacific Place, May 22, 9pm at the Egyptian Theatre, and again May 25, 9:30pm at The Everett Performing Arts Center.}

Fine (Stine Fischer Christensen) is a mousy, innocent, and mostly ignored actress who is berated by the head coach at her acting school for not being visible enough, and rightly so, since she promptly falls asleep on stage during an important workshop. So it’s a surprise when she wins a juicy and prominent lead role in a famous director’s new play. 

But amidst struggles at home with an overwhelmed mother and a mentally-handicapped sister, Fine starts to crumble as the demanding director gives her more and more off-stage advice on how to “become” the sexually-charged and destructive character Camille … which, predictably, sometimes involves "becoming" in his bed. (oof. bad joke, sorry!) 

Donning a blonde wig fashioned for the play, Fine adopts Camille’s persona and sets out to romance a handsome stranger named Joachim (Ronald Zehrfeld, whose ruggedness I totally drooled over in last year’s 12 Paces Without a Head), which doesn’t quite produce the tragic results the director was hoping would come across in her acting. Determined to please him, Fine continues a downward, Black Swan-esque spiral on her way to fully becoming Camille, which uh. May or may not end well.

Clocking in at 113 minutes, Cracks in the Shell starts to wear a little thin by the end, but it’s still a nice way to spend the evening—if only to watch Christensen shine in the lead role. And don't worry, it's not *quite* as depressing as Aronofsky's doomed ballerina tale.

more...

A gritty South African noir, a gorgeous French-Canadian melodrama, and a cloying gay "message movie" from right here in the US of A are among the hits and misses on offer during SIFF 2012's first full week.  

Highlights for Monday-Sunday, 5/21 - 5/27:

DON'T MISS:

Elena
{screens May 24 at 7pm at Pacific Place}
Gripping, stylish, gorgeously crafted Russian tale of a coveted bequest, pitiless class conflict, and the misdeeds of a tenuous marriage. He's rich, in poor health, and drawing up a will; her lazy son's trashy family needs dough. But noted filmmaker Andrei Zvyaginstev (The Return) doesn't allow their story to follow any prescribed path. Tension arrives in slight movements and subtle unravelings; it's a beautifully slow burn, and patience is rewarded manifold. Feast your eyes.

How to Survive a Plague
{screens May 21 at 9pm at Pacific Place}
Outsiders throughout history have been organizing to solve seemingly insurmountable problems; the dilemma du jour in mid-'80s NYC was the AIDS crisis. This marvelously thorough documentary focuses on organizations ACT-UP and TAG, their struggles with prevailing ideas of the day and their roles in the mid-'90s breakthrough of combination therapy. Via amazing archival footage we see the activists age and progress over the course of three presidential administrations and millions of deaths. A passionate and extraordinarily moving account of a hard-won turning point.

The Imposter
{screens May 23 at 8:30pm at the Uptown, May 29 at 9pm at the Harvard Exit}
Spellbinding, infuriating, beautifully executed documentary thriller about a French Algerian mystery-man who in 1997 passed himself off as a missing San Antonio teen, fooling international officials and (most astoundingly) the boy's actual family. Queasiness in the first half ends abruptly when an awesomely old-school local P.I. rolls in (complete with Johnny Cash fanfare) and gets the show on the road, leading the crazy-ass story to an edge-of-your-seat climax. The film satisfies, even if the real-life outcomes do not.

more...