Personal Velocity: Three Portraits

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Ken R Rebecca Miller's second feature movie is just what you would expect to win awards at a Sundance festival (if you can take those ‘styles' you may be somehow ‘entertained') Others can expect to sit through very roughly sketched plotlines - in this case, it's three shallow stories about women that don't particularly link up well or offer any satisfactory resolutions. The photography by Ellen Kuras consists of shaky (cheap and trendy) video handheld shots, mostly taken with the zoom lens on extreme tight --producing a nauseating wobble cam-- with the operator attempting to frame the subject within a rocky, sea-sick making image. The crass, sensationalistic situations and course dialogue are mostly drawn from the perspective of modern, disenfranchised immature females - with some of the title characters preferring to live out female fantasies (even when in successful relationships of their own making), actions that predictably lead to utter chaos. All these women are quite unbelievably devoid of the ability to learn from any obvious life experiences or moral convictions. It's difficult to fully sympathise with these somewhat sordid characters or feel all that much empathy for their all too obvious and inevitable outcomes. Performances are OK with Michael Rohatyn supplying a cute minimalist main theme. Rebecca's Dad, Arthur Miller, may have been a notable and worthy writer but that's clearly not always guaranteed to transfer to the offspring. Strictly for undemanding viewers of the ‘type'- others will give up within the first 15 mins and be better off. Rated 2/5 Stars •  Rated 2 out of 5 stars 04/22/20 Full Review Audience Member Not my cup of tea. I don't mind the short stories, but other that the fact the three women are having troubles in part due to their upbringing, the stories do not inter-relate at all. Rated 1.5/5 Stars •  Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars 01/27/23 Full Review Audience Member This film is comprised of three portraits of women, one escaping from an abusive marriage, one considering adultery, and one who picks up a hitchhiker. Overly expository, these stories are undeveloped. The transition between short story and film is a difficult one, and Rebecca Miller clings to her prose with an obsessive compulsion that doesn't recognize the visual nature of her new medium. And the need to give backstory on all of her characters doesn't even work in prose. All three of the stories revolve around the theme of characters being stuck by their own identities and pasts. It's an interesting theme, but I don't see anything new in the way it's presented or the individualities of the characters, excepting the final story with Fairuza Balk. Overall, there is a difference between film and prose, and Miller doesn't adapt to that difference. Rated 1.5/5 Stars •  Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars 02/26/23 Full Review Audience Member 3/1/13? My review for this film somehow disappeared, so I'll have to try again over a month later. The 3 stories don't tie together, which was very disappointing b/c I assumed they would. This was a big let down at the end. The stories in themselves are fairly interesting to watch, but each one just ends, leaving it feeling incomplete. The transitions between the stories is non-existent. One story abruptly ends, then the other begins. Obviously, this left me pretty frustrated. Rated 2.5/5 Stars •  Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 01/30/23 Full Review Audience Member Loved the direction and the way the stories were portrayed...very different insights into different lives...well enacted Rated 4/5 Stars •  Rated 4 out of 5 stars 02/27/23 Full Review Audience Member More of an art with Vibrant characters then a random movie of the week film. Rated 4/5 Stars •  Rated 4 out of 5 stars 02/03/23 Full Review Read all reviews

Personal Velocity: Three Portraits

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