An earnest attempt to adopt both literary and highbrow cinematic techniques into an indie story, Winter Passing reminds one of the state in which American cinema has found itself over the last decade or so. To categorize broadly, there are the main-stream, box office extravaganzas with huge budgets, casts, advertising campaigns and hopes. On the flip side is a film like this; personal, introspective, rough around the edges, yet still not altogether coherent and meaningful.
A film like this depends even more so on its actors and writing than more grand movies due to its lack of polish and refinement. Often, this can still lead to an effective experience, but here under writer/director Adam Rapp's embalmed oversight, much of the story suffers from a case of severe underplaying. Zooey Deschanel, a marvelous actress, maintains her ethereal beauty and her doe-like eyes continue to draw us into her soul. Yet, in many scenes she seems to be subdued in not being able to fully express herself, allowing for a somewhat uneven and stilted performance. Ed Harris gives the film's best performance as a once-brilliant writer on the verge of total collapse after the death of his wife and Will Ferrell shows once again the full capabilities of his range with this subtle, nuanced performance to go alongside his much broader roles of Ron Burgundy and Ricky Bobby.
Though most of the actors do rise above the material, the material itself is often too cluttered and uneven to maintain the audience the whole way through. Several sequences serve little to no purpose of the overall plot, including one early thread which serves as the entire reason for the story, only to be dumped by the end of the film for supposed "artistic" purposes; i.e., ambiguity serves as a great excuse for unconvincing writing. Some characters remain constant, while others seem to be strung along by the plot as if they were puppets. Essentially, Rapp seems interested only in arriving to his abrupt and rather unsatisfying conclusion, seemingly to show us how far everyone has come. Everyone, that is, except for the audience.
A film like this depends even more so on its actors and writing than more grand movies due to its lack of polish and refinement. Often, this can still lead to an effective experience, but here under writer/director Adam Rapp's embalmed oversight, much of the story suffers from a case of severe underplaying. Zooey Deschanel, a marvelous actress, maintains her ethereal beauty and her doe-like eyes continue to draw us into her soul. Yet, in many scenes she seems to be subdued in not being able to fully express herself, allowing for a somewhat uneven and stilted performance. Ed Harris gives the film's best performance as a once-brilliant writer on the verge of total collapse after the death of his wife and Will Ferrell shows once again the full capabilities of his range with this subtle, nuanced performance to go alongside his much broader roles of Ron Burgundy and Ricky Bobby.
Though most of the actors do rise above the material, the material itself is often too cluttered and uneven to maintain the audience the whole way through. Several sequences serve little to no purpose of the overall plot, including one early thread which serves as the entire reason for the story, only to be dumped by the end of the film for supposed "artistic" purposes; i.e., ambiguity serves as a great excuse for unconvincing writing. Some characters remain constant, while others seem to be strung along by the plot as if they were puppets. Essentially, Rapp seems interested only in arriving to his abrupt and rather unsatisfying conclusion, seemingly to show us how far everyone has come. Everyone, that is, except for the audience.