The strength of "Personal Effects" as a film was in its style. The careful set-ups, the cool lighting, the intense close-ups, and the languid fade outs made for a stunning viewing experience. But the slow pacing and the depressing content made for an overly unpleasant slice of life.
The narrative combines the lives of two families who have lost a loved one in a violent act of murder. Clay Pietrysk and his mother Linda lost Larry, a hard-drinking dad and husband who ran with the wrong crowd and was shot to death. Anne "Annie" Lynne Blunt was brutally murdered by an individual never identified in the film. Annie's grieving mom Gloria and her son Walter are doubly impacted when the only suspect, Thomas Robert Friedingen, is found not guilty in court.
Young Walter Blunt was a star wrestler at the University of Iowa. But his collegiate and athletic career collapsed with the death of his sister. Walter blames himself for not protecting Annie. In the course of grieving, Walter begins a romantic relationship with Linda, a woman arguably old enough to be his mother. That relationship guides the second half of the film.
The most interesting character is Linda, played by the luminous Michelle Pfeiffer. A talented artist and a creative coordinator of marriage celebrations at a local community center, Linda also has managed to raise her son Clay, who is deaf. Trough the tutelage of Walter, Clay shows promise as a wrestler while working under Coach Partenheimer.
As the film unfolded, there were far too many unconvincing plot strands and a sluggish pacing in which the dialogue often ground to a screeching halt. The personal effects of the film's title tended to drop out, and props such as a gun came to used for its intended purpose, as opposed to a family memento.
A central visual metaphor for the film was the chicken's costume worn by Walter in his job as a shill for a pizza joint. But in his role, he is a sad chicken, devastated by the loss of his sister and his inability in coming to terms with her death. Both his mom and Linda were in group therapy. But Walter was the one who needed it the most.
The ending made no sense when Clay was determined to kill Friedingen with no clear motivation. The reliance on a melodramatic shooting recalls some of creaky plot devices of the plays of Ibsen and Chekhov. The over-the-top ending with Walter accidentally shot by Clay, then seemingly miraculously recovered was in keeping with a film that constantly fell short of depicting a truly plausible set of circumstances for characters mired in the reality of death.
The narrative combines the lives of two families who have lost a loved one in a violent act of murder. Clay Pietrysk and his mother Linda lost Larry, a hard-drinking dad and husband who ran with the wrong crowd and was shot to death. Anne "Annie" Lynne Blunt was brutally murdered by an individual never identified in the film. Annie's grieving mom Gloria and her son Walter are doubly impacted when the only suspect, Thomas Robert Friedingen, is found not guilty in court.
Young Walter Blunt was a star wrestler at the University of Iowa. But his collegiate and athletic career collapsed with the death of his sister. Walter blames himself for not protecting Annie. In the course of grieving, Walter begins a romantic relationship with Linda, a woman arguably old enough to be his mother. That relationship guides the second half of the film.
The most interesting character is Linda, played by the luminous Michelle Pfeiffer. A talented artist and a creative coordinator of marriage celebrations at a local community center, Linda also has managed to raise her son Clay, who is deaf. Trough the tutelage of Walter, Clay shows promise as a wrestler while working under Coach Partenheimer.
As the film unfolded, there were far too many unconvincing plot strands and a sluggish pacing in which the dialogue often ground to a screeching halt. The personal effects of the film's title tended to drop out, and props such as a gun came to used for its intended purpose, as opposed to a family memento.
A central visual metaphor for the film was the chicken's costume worn by Walter in his job as a shill for a pizza joint. But in his role, he is a sad chicken, devastated by the loss of his sister and his inability in coming to terms with her death. Both his mom and Linda were in group therapy. But Walter was the one who needed it the most.
The ending made no sense when Clay was determined to kill Friedingen with no clear motivation. The reliance on a melodramatic shooting recalls some of creaky plot devices of the plays of Ibsen and Chekhov. The over-the-top ending with Walter accidentally shot by Clay, then seemingly miraculously recovered was in keeping with a film that constantly fell short of depicting a truly plausible set of circumstances for characters mired in the reality of death.