Saturday, December 23, 2023

White Reindeer (2013)

 Suzanne Barrington (Anna Margaret Hollyman) is a DC area realtor in her early 30's, whose meteorologist husband (Nathan Williams) is killed in a home invasion robbery 24 days before Christmas. After the funeral her late husband's best friend tells her that her spouse had an affair with a stripper for several months about a year ago. Suzanne tracks the woman (Laura Lemar-Goldsborough) down and the two actually become friends.

 This friendship is the start of a series of out of character behavioral changes Suzanne adopts in an attempt to deal with her situation; behaviors that include giving up meat, snorting Cocaine, spending sprees and attending her neighbors orgey, an awkwardly funny sequence that ends with the participants playing the Rock Band video game. 

Despite everything that happens to her Suzanne remains a fundamentally good person, who through the course of several unusual nights realizes the need to get herself together for the good of others as well as herself.

Low budget, independent film never fully realizes the promise of its premise, but it comes damn close. Uneven, characters sometimes seem like they are in different movies (I'm thinking of her boss in particular), but the dark comedy sometimes works and there are a couple of scenes I found downright moving, one even borderline profound. A movie I'd like to digest for a while and then revisit. ***

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