Turn the River.

"You can almost smell the clammy atmosphere inside the New York pool hall to which Kailey Sullivan (Famke Janssen), a tough cookie from upstate, periodically repairs to regain her bearings in Turn the River," writes Stephen Holden in the New York Times.

"Turn the River plays it cool - not bad, when you realize that Chris Eigeman, normally an actor, is making his début here as a writer and director, and when you weigh the mass of sadness that sits upon his film," writes Anthony Lane in the New Yorker. "Skip the coda to this movie, with its tiny upswing of hope, and remember the days at the tables, as dim and endless as nights, and the click of the dialogue."

Updated through 5/16.

"Turn the River can't weather the ante-upping into pathos when Kailey desperately reasserts her privilege of motherhood - but the sense of storytelling intelligence is undeniable," writes Nick Pinkerton in the Voice.

New York's David Edelstein finds it "has a mixture of edginess and melancholy that's beautifully sustained until the climax, when the tang of realism becomes the cudgel of melodrama."

"It's a bumpy film, and though no one may see it, it's impossible to imagine it playing as gracefully, like its effectively open-ended finale, without Janssen's conviction to her role," writes Ed Gonzalez in Slant.

"Without feeling like the centerpiece, Ms Janssen's grounded performance saves whole stretches of the movie," writes Nicolas Rapold in the New York Sun.

Stephen Saito talks with Eigeman for the IFC.

Nathaniel R interviews Janssen.

Update, 5/16: Carina Chocano in the Los Angeles Times: "The main problem with Turn the River is that it's a well-acted, if not terribly well-crafted, character-driven drama without much in the way of a purpose."

Posted by dwhudson at May 10, 2008 9:59 AM