Morvern Callar

2002's MORVERN CALLAR was a rather discomforting experience for this viewer.  The sting of recognizance.  As if director Lynne Ramsay had stolen certain moments from my 20s.  But the titular character is maybe not so much lost in the confusion of youth as driven by the urgency to escape.  To escape a bleakness that she fears will seal her fate.  A life of working to survive, returning to a drab flat, maybe going out for a pint at the same pub.  Over and over.  For some, like her best pal Lanna, it's enough:

There's nothing wrong with here.  It's the same crapness everywhere, so stop dreaming.

Morvern can't reconcile such thoughts.  Maybe her wanderlust, if that's what it is, will allow her many life defining experiences. We see the genesis of it here.  The film opens with Morvern (Samantha Morton) stroking her boyfriend's hair.  They're on the floor.  He'd committed suicide, right next the Christmas tree.  He left a brief note on his computer, stating he felt it was the right thing to do.  He tells her to be brave.

There are instructions to use the money in the bank to pay for his funeral.  And, his completed novel is on the hard drive.  For Morvern, these two things promise the ticket to a brighter life.  Her actions will strike many viewers as selfish, disrespectful, and maybe even evil.  Would she justify them, by telling us of the difficult upbringing she had, or maybe how her dead boyfriend treated her?  We only have inference, and Morton has a great face to tell us everything and nothing.  Hers is a performance of inertia and introspection. While she doesn't seem like the most educated individual in Glasgow, we deduce that her emotional IQ is undergoing a serious metamorphasis.

Ramsay's film has a lot of dialogue free long shots of Morvern, and what Morvern is looking at.  She is fascinated by nature, insects, the organic.  Her human connections seem to frustrate her, be it a guy with whom she has a random hook-up at a hotel in Spain or even Lanna (Kathleen McDermott), who understands her friend less and less and time passes.  We may feel the same way, frustrated with Morvern's odd and unpredictable behavior.  She's enigmatic, but also relatable.  This is a troubling, poignant, and poetic movie that will likely stay with you for some time.   Great soundtrack, too.