Like many US indie films, there's real sense of the extraordinary coming through from the very ordinary, here, with Lymelife.
Throughout, there was a real sense of odd detachment about it, especially in the scenes with the sufferer of the disease (Lymes) in question, Timothy Hutton, who keeps seeing a deer from his sick bed and then goes off out into the winter landscape to hunt it down, with a rifle....
The film itself was on late on BBC2 and I wish now that I'd been more alert to appreciate it, but what I did, is certainly memorable enough. Like Ang Lee's excellent The Ice Storm (set in the same 1970's) and in commuter belt Long Island, it's a gritty and often unsettlingly difficult to watch relationship drama. The family politics go haywire as father Alec Baldwin has an affair, which is one story and the other, that other reviewers have touched on, is of Rory Culkin finding his sexuality amongst this upset and upheaval.
Apart from the often cringe-inducing 'fashions' and hairstyles, it is probably his touching and nuanced performance as he fumbles with finding his first sexual experience that is the most memorable. Against the backdrop of Baldwin's often self righteous shouting rants, you can't but feel for him and his vulnerability and innocence.
As always, buying yet another DVD to view a film properly is offset against cash, so I might have to wait for it to reappear on TV somewhere before I can be reacquainted. I feel that it has the capabilities of being a very fine film, if offbeat and well worth taking a second look at. Intrigued!
Throughout, there was a real sense of odd detachment about it, especially in the scenes with the sufferer of the disease (Lymes) in question, Timothy Hutton, who keeps seeing a deer from his sick bed and then goes off out into the winter landscape to hunt it down, with a rifle....
The film itself was on late on BBC2 and I wish now that I'd been more alert to appreciate it, but what I did, is certainly memorable enough. Like Ang Lee's excellent The Ice Storm (set in the same 1970's) and in commuter belt Long Island, it's a gritty and often unsettlingly difficult to watch relationship drama. The family politics go haywire as father Alec Baldwin has an affair, which is one story and the other, that other reviewers have touched on, is of Rory Culkin finding his sexuality amongst this upset and upheaval.
Apart from the often cringe-inducing 'fashions' and hairstyles, it is probably his touching and nuanced performance as he fumbles with finding his first sexual experience that is the most memorable. Against the backdrop of Baldwin's often self righteous shouting rants, you can't but feel for him and his vulnerability and innocence.
As always, buying yet another DVD to view a film properly is offset against cash, so I might have to wait for it to reappear on TV somewhere before I can be reacquainted. I feel that it has the capabilities of being a very fine film, if offbeat and well worth taking a second look at. Intrigued!