|
A SLIPPING DOWN LIFE Send This Review to a Friend
The film slides, too, as we sink to the level of two characters who have some impact because of the performers, but are basically the floundering sort better left to flounder on their own. "A Slipping Down Life," earnestly directed by Toni Kalem, focuses on Lily Taylor as Eve, an impressionable woman who fixates on Guy Pearce as Drumstrings Casey, an aspiring singer and songwriter and tries to help him get ahead and improve her own drab existence.
To give you some idea of Eve's commitment, she carves his name on her forehead with glass, backwards as she is looking in a mirror, and that's one of the brighter events in this depressing excursion into their tormented, turbulent lives. Kalem wrote the screenplay based on a novel by Anne Tyler.
The action takes place in a small North Carolina town, and the story details how Eve tries to control and promote Casey's career and his life. She's smitten and the complications mount. Lily Taylor is a winsome actress, but she is struggling against boring, unrewarding material, as is Pearce. Despite all the effort to get the right performances and the right ambience, the characters are not people one might want to spend a whole lot of time with. A Lions Gate Films release.
|