Marjorie Prime (15.)
Directed by Michael Almereyda
Starring Jon Hamm, Geena Davis, Tim Robbins, Lois Smith. 97 mins
Marjorie Prime imagines a future where we can grow our own ghosts; Primes, virtual representations of departed love ones that people can fill up with, sometimes unreliable, memories of their time together. Encouraged by her son-in-law Robbins, 85-year-old Marjorie (Smith) has a Prime version of her husband, Hamm, as he was when they first got married.
This is a small scale, single location drama; the kind where people talk in cold looking rooms, while classical music plays on the soundtrack. Actors love these projects because it is pure acting, unencumbered by any running about: theatre but softly spoken and without the bother of having to turn up every night or learn all the lines. It is of course based on a play but the writing is subtle and persuasive and Almereyda's adaptation gives it a menacing undertone. It doesn't though quite make enough of its theme of the vagaries of memory.
Directed by Michael Almereyda
Starring Jon Hamm, Geena Davis, Tim Robbins, Lois Smith. 97 mins
Marjorie Prime imagines a future where we can grow our own ghosts; Primes, virtual representations of departed love ones that people can fill up with, sometimes unreliable, memories of their time together. Encouraged by her son-in-law Robbins, 85-year-old Marjorie (Smith) has a Prime version of her husband, Hamm, as he was when they first got married.
This is a small scale, single location drama; the kind where people talk in cold looking rooms, while classical music plays on the soundtrack. Actors love these projects because it is pure acting, unencumbered by any running about: theatre but softly spoken and without the bother of having to turn up every night or learn all the lines. It is of course based on a play but the writing is subtle and persuasive and Almereyda's adaptation gives it a menacing undertone. It doesn't though quite make enough of its theme of the vagaries of memory.
