Like staring at the ocean horizon from a desert island or being rocked to sleep in your mother's arms, The Yellow Handkerchief is a warm, enchanting and entrancing experience. With a story built on the calm and measured magnetism of William Hurt, illuminated with youthful flashes of spirit by Kristen Stewart and Eddie Redmayne and sheltered under the beautiful pain of Maria Bello, this film invites you in from the cold and lets you nestle in its relaxed tenderness. I'm not much for slow, sentimental tales of lost love and teenage angst, but this movie has made be reconsider that. If anyone ever tells me a motion picture is "like The Yellow Handkerchief", I'm definitely going to give it a look.
Brett (William Hurt) is a grown-ass man who just got out of prison. There's no one to greet him in freedom, so he starts walking south. At a diner, he meets Martine (Kristen Stewart) and Gordy (Eddie Redmayne). One is desperately looking in others for what she can't find in her own father and the other is an awkward bundle of nerves who thinks he's Jack Kerouac but is mostly just whack. Gordy does have a convertible and the three start off on a little trip across the river and, through storm and scuffle and keep on driving until their stories spill out of them, especially the woman that Brett's bound for even though he's not sure if she'll welcome him or if he deserves it.
Hurt's character is as much at the heart of this film as any I've seen, as the world-weary Brett's journey with these two emotionally exposed kids is interposed with his memories of May (Maria Bello), the damaged woman he fell in love with at the sight of her soulful face. The two tales wonderfully compliment each other as Brett is the one drawn irresistibly to May while it is Martine and Gordy who find themselves caught up in his gravitational pull. Hurt gives an award-worthy performance that is all the more notable for how he never overpowers his younger co-stars. Don't get me wrong. Stewart and Redmayne are marvelous in their own right, but it would have been so easy for Hurt to dominate the screen instead of letting Brett be merely the center of it. No one would have objected, yet that ultimately would have sucked the melodic ease out of the movie and robbed it of its human depth.
Kristen Stewart also deserves a lot of praise because her role is written quite obviously. She's playing a wounded girl who's anguish is visible to anyone who looks at her, something that's not all that easy to pull off without overshooting or underplaying the affect. Redmayne's part is more overtly colorful and obtuse but it comes off a little bit like shtick. Stewart feels like a living, breathing, confounding teenage girl.
I also want to single out director Udayan Prasad for praise. His narrative and visual confidence is second only to Hurt's acting in making The Yellow Handkerchief work. This story is quiet and slow and the temptation to speed it up or do something on screen visually out of fear of losing the audience's attention had to be a difficult beast to battle. Prasad let's things unfold in their own due course and perfectly balances the trio in the convertible with the flashbacks to May. This is the sort of direction where you can't easily notice what's being done, which I find much more appealing and proficient than films where the director is practically waving at you from the screen.
The Yellow Handkerchief is a darling production, which is an adjective I don't think I've never used before or even appreciated what it really meant before now. Why it was not a much bigger deal when it came out is a mystery to me. Maybe Stewart's inclusion will eventually attract some Twi-hard attention to this little gem. Something good ought to come out of those sparkly vampire flicks.
Brett (William Hurt) is a grown-ass man who just got out of prison. There's no one to greet him in freedom, so he starts walking south. At a diner, he meets Martine (Kristen Stewart) and Gordy (Eddie Redmayne). One is desperately looking in others for what she can't find in her own father and the other is an awkward bundle of nerves who thinks he's Jack Kerouac but is mostly just whack. Gordy does have a convertible and the three start off on a little trip across the river and, through storm and scuffle and keep on driving until their stories spill out of them, especially the woman that Brett's bound for even though he's not sure if she'll welcome him or if he deserves it.
Hurt's character is as much at the heart of this film as any I've seen, as the world-weary Brett's journey with these two emotionally exposed kids is interposed with his memories of May (Maria Bello), the damaged woman he fell in love with at the sight of her soulful face. The two tales wonderfully compliment each other as Brett is the one drawn irresistibly to May while it is Martine and Gordy who find themselves caught up in his gravitational pull. Hurt gives an award-worthy performance that is all the more notable for how he never overpowers his younger co-stars. Don't get me wrong. Stewart and Redmayne are marvelous in their own right, but it would have been so easy for Hurt to dominate the screen instead of letting Brett be merely the center of it. No one would have objected, yet that ultimately would have sucked the melodic ease out of the movie and robbed it of its human depth.
Kristen Stewart also deserves a lot of praise because her role is written quite obviously. She's playing a wounded girl who's anguish is visible to anyone who looks at her, something that's not all that easy to pull off without overshooting or underplaying the affect. Redmayne's part is more overtly colorful and obtuse but it comes off a little bit like shtick. Stewart feels like a living, breathing, confounding teenage girl.
I also want to single out director Udayan Prasad for praise. His narrative and visual confidence is second only to Hurt's acting in making The Yellow Handkerchief work. This story is quiet and slow and the temptation to speed it up or do something on screen visually out of fear of losing the audience's attention had to be a difficult beast to battle. Prasad let's things unfold in their own due course and perfectly balances the trio in the convertible with the flashbacks to May. This is the sort of direction where you can't easily notice what's being done, which I find much more appealing and proficient than films where the director is practically waving at you from the screen.
The Yellow Handkerchief is a darling production, which is an adjective I don't think I've never used before or even appreciated what it really meant before now. Why it was not a much bigger deal when it came out is a mystery to me. Maybe Stewart's inclusion will eventually attract some Twi-hard attention to this little gem. Something good ought to come out of those sparkly vampire flicks.