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Kirsten Russell & Clint Jordan as Joyce & Rick
in MILK AND HONEY
Photo: Wellspring

MILK AND HONEY
Directed & Written by: Joe Maggio.
Produced by: Thierry Cagianut & Matthew Myers.
Director of Photography: Gordon Chou.
Edited by: Seth E. Anderson.
Music by: Hal Hartley.
Released by: Wellspring.
Country of Origin: USA. 91 min. Not Rated.
With: Clint Jordan, Kirsten Russell & Dudley Findlay, Jr.

Rick (Clint Jordan), having just returned from a mental institution, re-proposes to his wife Joyce (Kirsten Russell) at his welcome back party. After Joyce rejects his proposal, everyone else makes a silent exit. In private, after she rejects his proposal yet again, Rick makes a loud exit. He visits a recent girlfriend and then his psychiatrist before embarking on a journey of self-realization. Joyce takes to the streets in search of her not-so-stable husband and falls into an emotional whirlwind of her own.

Milk and Honey relies a lot on coincidence. Flashbacks reveal that over the past few weeks both Rick and Joyce have separately encountered the same random New York City apartment as well as come in contact with Moses Jackson (Dudley Findlay, Jr.), a well-to-do crime-scene cleaner with a dying mother. If there were only one pivotal coincidence in the film, it might seem believable. But twists of fate are so abundant here that it is simply ridiculous when Rick eventually winds up in the same hospital (the same hallway no less) as Moses' ailing mother. Like in many instances, this is a moment of drama that plays comedically. Luckily for director Joe Maggio, most of the intended comedic elements work because the events that take place over this one night are quirky and highly ludicrous. The constant teeter between comedy and drama, however, is ultimately aggravating.

Selfish acts from both Rick and Joyce provide the viewer with no reason to sympathize with this pair of overprivileged New Yorkers. Rick wishes death upon himself as he walks the streets with a $50,000 ring in his pocket. Joyce takes a shower in her lavish apartment to erase the filth from a regrettable one-night stand. These two are so unjustifiably self-pitying that one can only look on from the outside and be thankful that they're stuck with each other. Michael Belkewitch
March 16, 2005

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