PARTICLES OF TRUTH
Directed, Produced & Written by: Jennifer Elster.
Director of Photography: Toshiro Yamaguchi.
Edited by: Ron Len.
Released by: Matter.
Country of Origin: USA. 101 min. Not Rated.
With: Jennifer Elster, Gale Harold, Susan Floyd, Larry Pine, Richard Wilkinson & Elizabeth Van Meter.

A 2002 mishmash of a movie, Particles of Truth may be accused of many things, but truthfulness does not exactly jump out as one of them (and certainly not particle-sized, since excessiveness is writer/director Jennifer Elster's modus operandi). The film follows Lili (Jennifer Elster), a painter, and writer Morrison (Gale Harold) as they encounter each other amidst NYC's alternative scene, and realize they must sort out their own problems before they can fully connect. And what problems they are! Lili copes with having been raised by druggie parents. Her father's hang-ups result from having been put up for adoption, and the fact that he is now dying of AIDS. Morrison is a germ-phobe confined to his car. Having a rivalry with his son, Morrison's father, who has been laid off and is impotent, refuses to read Morrison's book. Or something like that.

The movie starts promisingly, with a montage crosscutting to the concluding scenes of the story. This established urgency quickly devolves, however, into pretentious attempts at attention-grabbing cinematography (such as an unnecessary digitally animated sequence) that the film, I am afraid, would have the viewer consider "hip." Such characters as Lili's religiously fanatical roommate Flora (Elizabeth Van Meter) and her violent psychopathic lover Will (Richard Wilkinson) are one-dimensional (like most of the film's characters). Their presence as comic relief only adds to the ridiculously campy melodrama. Most egregiously, Elster's style extends to her dialogue. Her jabs at witty repartee (Lili to Morrison: "So you, um, basically use germs to distance yourself from the world?") fall stupendously flat. Reymond Levy
September 17, 2004