Incredibly honest and disturbingly gut-wrenching...

Rating: 7/10 (10 December 2005)

This movie was one one of the most honest and gut-wrenching films I've seen in a very long time. Holly Hunter plays Ada, a mute, brilliant piano mistress who's recently been "sold"/"married" to a man she's never met (Sam Neil) in New Zealand. Ana Paquin as her daughter is wonderful and expressive addition to the cast. The circumstances of Ada's "marriage" and affair are both pitiful and enthralling -- she captivates you with her blank, yet at the same time incredibly deep stare, and the viewer is left wondering what she might be thinking ... not in the frustrating, "I don't understand where this film is going," but in the "how would I act in this situation" sort of way. To that question, there seems to be relatively no answers, except the ones provided on screen. The honesty and sadness, and even the desperate kind of hope or joy expressed in the resolution of the film left me both sick to my stomach, and glad to have seen it.
This movie should not be approached by the faint of heart -- it's both so strange and so real, and the graphic / traumatic scenes verge on the deeply unsettling. Well worth seeing, but be warned.