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Reflections are rewarding in character-driven 'Personal Velocity'
Parker Posey plays a cookbook editor in 'Personal Velocity'
UA/MGM
Miller, the daughter of Arthur Miller and wife of Daniel Day-Lewis, drew them from her same-named book of short stories. She subtitles the package "Three Portraits."
Each of the unrelated 30-ish women lives in New York state. Two of the episodes conclude with a news report of a murder. Two show their central character crying softly while observing others sleep. All are narrated by John Ventimiglia.
Delia Shunt (Kyra Sedgwick), who once beat a guy in a barroom brawl, was caregiver to her volatile father, Pete (Brian Tarantina), an aging pot-smoking Catskills hippie.
By 12, she was the class slut, by 17 married to Kurt Wurtzle (David Warshofsky), who abuses her and their three children. Their pain, rather than her own, shakes her from her inertia.
Delia looks to her old friend Fay (Mara Hobel) for refuge and re-asserts herself in an unexpected way when she meets a clod named Mylert (Leo Fitzpatrick).
In the second episode, Greta Herskovitz (Parker Posey) edits cookbooks for a publishing company run by Aaron Gelb (Wallace Shawn). For four years, she has been married to, or at least with, safe, kind, quiet, reliable Lee (Tim Guinee), a fact checker for the New Yorker.
"Everyone has their own personal velocity," says her father, Avram Herskovitz (Ron Leibman), a famous liberal attorney.
When Greta is requested by best-selling writer Thavi (Joel de la Fuente) for the job of editing his post-Laos memoir, she enjoys an unexpected growth of self-esteem and a renewed sense of her attractiveness from Thavi, from former Harvard classmate Oscar (Josh Philip Weinstein) and from rabbinical student Max (Ben Shenkman), with whom she had a torrid affair.
Suddenly, safety isn't so attractive.
In the third episode, Paula (Fairuza Balk) is pregnant by her Haitian-born lover, Vincent (Seth Gilliam). To think through her options, she visits her mother, Celia (Patti D'Arbanville), even though she cannot abide by Mom's live-in, another man named Peter (David Patrick Kelly). But then, Peter is on to Paula's pattern of mooching.
Her epiphany involves the abused hitchhiker Kevin (Lou Taylor Pucci), whose needs allow her to play rescuer.
All of the women explore fidelity and dependence issues.
Photographed in trendy, jittery fashion on digital video and sometimes overly reliant on closeups, "Personal Velocity" profits from a strong marriage of tight character writing to a sterling ensemble performance, especially by the three leads.
The point of each episode isn't always immediately evident. Reflection on each journey rewards in retrospect.
| 'Personal Velocity' |
Director: Rebecca Miller
Stars: Kyra Sedgwick, Parker Posey, Fairuza Balk
MPAA Rating: R, for brief violence, some strong sexuality and language
Where: Harris, Downtown
