Review of Duane Hopwood (2005) by Ahmad K — 30 Oct 2007

This movie boils down to three scenes: the opening, where Duane is arrested; the meeting, where Duane breaks down; the end, which somehow is ambiguous, not quite happy, not quite sad. You feel that this is a character who has gone on a real journey, and it's up to you to decide whether or not he'll repeat his mistakes. He's done some terrible things, lost the life he used to have, hit pretty close to bottom, but keeps his dignity.

Yeah, I liked this movie. Might have done some things differently - the Ben Folds song kind of disrupted things for me - but the storytelling is mostly solid. It's certainly playing a difficult game, very un-Hollywood: rendering a man who is real, whose problems are real, whose humanity is real. I'd recommend it.