f you look too closely, there is little that elevates Forty Shades of Blue above matter-of-course territory of soap-like emotional abrasion. This is, instead, a slow seduction, one that unwinds tenderly but grips with its intricate emotional undertakings. With only his second feature, director Ira Sachs is slowly honing a reputation for himself by conjuring sumptuous human chamber stories that owe as much to the emotional naturalism of a Cassavettes or a Bergman as they do to the neo-realism of Sachs’ admitted influence, Ken Loach. I went into this movie not knowing what to expect whilst expecting very little at all, and I came out, forty shades of emotional reactioneering later, thoroughly impressed with what turned out to be one the most accomplished movies I’ve seen all year.

“I’m interested in the conflicts and complexities of identity,” Sachs once said, and studies of psychological debilitation and emotive disillusionment come little thornier and more honest than this one. A chamber piece of rare emotional heart, Forty Shades is a melancholy slow-burner, a lacerating family drama with an undiluted lyrical clearness that is as much a heartstring tugger as a powerful sunset elegy about the many shades of emotional incitement.

Sublime in its presence, understated in its delivery, there is something about Forty Shades that works on a grand scale, leaving you unsettled, even at the end. With its hushed, grainy visual approach, low-key lighting, and decidedly art-house appeal, this is a somber and unconventional Sundance Grand Jury Prize winner, retracting to the smooth ambience, visual minimalism, and sentimental detachment of something out of the ‘70s. But it is also a terrific winner, leading me to wonder why American independent movies so rarely come this good.


Still, I would be unfairly dismissing what truly makes this movie so effective and heart-wrenching should I extend all of the credit to Sachs’ artful vision alone. It should go without saying that Forty Shades is equally as much about its striking duo of leads: Russian beauty Dina Korzun (of Pawel Pawlikovski’s Last Resort) and an as-per-usually brilliant Rip Torn.

Korzun’s Laura is a neglected, introverted trophy wife and eternal appendage to Torn’s Alan James, a can-do veteran Memphis music producer twenty years her senior. Vigilantly guarded and pencil-thin, Laura’s is a glacial presence that exudes all but comfort and contentment. In this role, Korzun is a find, and she rips through her scenes with an almost robotic efficiency and a gaze that infers a world of repression and emotional disengagement. And she does drunk superbly. Whether reacting to Torn’s bad-tempered persona or engaging in a sexual ménage with Alex’s son, Michael (Daniel Burrows, who fails to match the two in terms of either presence or memorability), Korzun affectingly essays a shattering internal collapse and succeeds in communicating so much with so little, despite her character’s decidedly enigmatic characterization.

Where Korzun’s coiled, detached performance is at the core of the movie’s emotional predicament, Torn’s thundering turn is as emblematic as it is commanding. It’s rapidly apparent that their relationship has never really worked, and the arrival of Michael, with whom Laura embarks on a short but emotional affair, has little to do with the demise of their union. Sachs is obviously clear about this, too.

There’s lots of churning beneath the surface, but Sachs keeps his focus clear. Where the suggestion of emotional impingement in such circumstances could all too easily devolve into a labyrinthine love triangle with all its pseudo-sentimental ramifications, Sachs is less interested in the story itself and more in the inferences and intimations his characters can pull off. Such is the way he treats Laura’s fate. Her brief, if deeply felt, exaltation in romantic love is played out as a gradual awakening to the inadequacies of her half-life, a realization of an emotional insecurity that only an altogether different place can fulfill. For us, what lingers is a memorable minor-key relationship drama, a poignant witness to heartbreak, and a Sundance winner with some actual substance to support its hype.

Forty Shades of Blue is available on DVD in the US and is currently playing in theatres in the UK.