Review of River of Grass (1995) by Walter M — 12 Mar 2013

Bored, Cozy(Lisa Bowman), a housewife, dresses up to go to a nearby bar where she encounters Lee(Larry Fessenden). Lee, despite rarely leaving his grandmother's house by the age of 29, has somehow and coincidentally come into the possession of the gun formerly belonging to Jimmy Ryder(Dick Russell), Cozy's father and a police detective, for which he has been suspended for one week. All of which has nothing to do with Lee inviting Cozy to go swimming in a friend's pool.

Even working on a miniscule budget as she is with her first film, "River of Grass," one can see definite filmmaking promise in Kelly Reichardt that she would deliver on in her later films. As it is, there is a very cool soundtrack as she manages to capture south Florida in a unique way while beginning her specialty in following characters who achieve varying levels of success in trying to get where they are going. That might also explain the lackadaisical, yet deadpan, pacing for which I will overlook the short eternity the plot, what there is of it, takes to kick in.