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Reviews of Recent Independent, Foreign, & Documentary Films in Theaters and DVD/Home Video
THE RECEPTION
At first glance, Martin (Wayne Lamont Sims) and Jeanette (Pamela Holden
Stewart), a fortyish couple, are as bourgeois as any Ingmar Bergman couple.
Nestled in a simply but tastefully furnished country home, Martin paints by
day; at night, they lounge about, reading and drinking wine. But the world
intrudes upon their snow-covered retreat; Jeanette's daughter, Sierra
(Margaret Burkwit), has unexpectedly arrived, along with her husband of one
month, law student Andrew (Darien Sills-Evan). Like her mother, Sierra has
fallen for a black man (both women are white). Jeanette is surprised, not so
much that Sierra has married, but that her daughter is speaking to her
after a long absence. Apparently Sierra has been just as reticent towards
Andrew; when he asks her how long Martin and Jeanette have been married, she
flippantly replies that Martin is gay.
Director/writer John C. Young moves the film along so that any
predictability snowballs into a tense drama in which Jeanette faces betrayal
on all fronts. The most cogent cast member, Stewart (who could be Emma
Thompson's older sister) has an impeccable French accent and effortlessly
mutates from a coquette to a drunken haranguing harpy. A glass of red wine
is permanently attached to her hand and when she says she has been a bad
mother, you believe her. Also impressive is Sills-Evan, especially in one
scene in which he's startlingly vulnerable.
However, the film's frequent hate-filled outbursts erupt suddenly, and in
one case, completely out of left field. They're so vicious they alienate not
only an unlucky dinner guest but possibly the audience as well. With a
running time of a clipped 78 minutes, transitions occur fast and furiously;
Jeanette's needy mood swings are not nearly as swift as Martin's sudden
change of heart. But at least Young doesn't press for a neat resolution. His
ending more than implies the rough road ahead for this family of sorts.
And filmed in the wintry Catskills and bathed in white light, The
Reception may be the best looking American film shot on digital video. Kent Turner
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