"Virgil Bliss" was a film I've been meaning to see for some time now. It was a pick at the IFP Market a few years back that I attended with my own script but never got to see. Finally I did on IFC around 1:00 in the morning. What really stood out for me in this film is what stood out in another film by Joe Maggio, "Milk and Honey". The performances. Clint Jordan plays the troubled man-child just released from Rikers. In the beginning I thought it was a strange pairing of this "southern boy" in a NYC maximum security prison but after the rules were established of who this person was I found myself a part of his experience. His experience is a inevitable journey through the hard, cold reality of an ex-con set free to live in the dead end world of starting back at square one. The object of his innocent desire is Ruby, a ten dollar a blow job prostitute played amazingly by Kirsten Russel. The prostitute role in film is a dime a dozen but to see it played believably is rare. She's troubled and she is trouble. Virgil has no chance after he's released. All the elements of the outside world drag him back into the belly of the beast. We know he is doomed and yet we watch anyway because maybe just maybe this good intentioned career criminal might escape the life he has been apart of for so long.
Review of Virgil Bliss
