Winter Passing

Plot synopsis:
Reese Holdin (Deschanel) is a depressed bartender/actress living in New York City. She regularly engages in casual sex, cocaine use and self-mutilation. When a publishing agent (Amy Madigan) approaches her, we learn that Reese is the daughter of a famous author named Don Holdin (Harris); and that her mother, Mary, recently died. Reese did not attend the funeral. The publisher offers the impecunious Reese $100,000 for a series of letters written between her mother and father at the height of their careers. When Reese learns that the kitten she rescued from the streets is dying of feline leukemia, she drowns it and buys a bus ticket.
Despite such family tensions, Reese travels to Michigan's Upper Peninsula to retrieve the letters. Returning to her childhood home, she finds it occupied by Corbit (Ferrell), a down-and-out Christian musician, and Shelley (Warner), a 23-year-old former student of Don's. Reese's father now lives, writes and drinks in his garage. Reese initially clashes with the doting Shelley (whom she accuses of sleeping with her father) but eventually accepts her after learning of the death of her parents and of Don's support of her during a near-fatal bout with endometriosis. She also bonds with the idiosyncratic Corbit, who spurns her sexual advances and has trouble playing guitar and singing at the same time. She feels out of place at home and fights with her father over childhood neglect, stating that her parents gave their typewriters more attention. She eventually finds the box of letters and, reading the emotional communiques, learns to empathize with her estranged parents. Shelly has also read the letters and asks Reese if she intends to publish them. Reese expresses ambiguity over the matter.
Don Holdin is still grieving over his wife's death. He keeps the tie she hanged herself with in a dresser in the backyard along with the rest of their bedroom suite, including their bed. He sometimes sleeps in the bed despite the bitter cold of winter. Reese starts to connect with Corbit and Shelly and is honest with her father about her reasons for staying away from the funeral. Soon after, Don overdoses on pills, and Reese finds him unconscious. He recovers in the hospital, where Reese sits by his bed and reads his latest manuscript, Golf, which he had Corbit bury in the yard. The experience helps the father and daughter find closure, and Reese buries the box of letters in place of the novel before returning to New York.

Tags: romantic

Review:
Inside the Box. Though the cover for the DVD of WINTER PASSING (a photo of the four main characters crowded into a box) may make many potential viewers pass over this little film, thinking that it must be silly slapstick, this is a fine film written and directed with finesse and style by Adam Rapp, a new face whose talents have been somewhat limited to working on episodes of the TV series 'The L Word'.
Rapp gives notice of a fine writer and an equally fine director in this barely noticed little touching movie.Reese Holdin (Zooey Deschanel) lives in New York, an actress relegated to small parts in off Broadway theater while spending her days as a bartender hooked on alcohol, drugs and casual sex.
But the spark of money moves her to ride a bus back to her Michigan home to salvage the letters to sell for publication.Arriving home she is greeted by the weird Corbit (Will Ferrell), a Christian electric guitar player and composer who ears black eyeliner etc, but does care for Reese's severely alcoholic father - the once famous writer Don Holdin (Ed Harris) who hasn't written a novel in years and lives in the garage of his home under the care of Corbit and an ex-student Shelley (Amelia Warner), a bright very young girl with demons of her own.
Reese works at reconnecting with her father, struggles with her resentment for the 'caregivers', and ultimately finds the letters she came for, only to make discoveries about her dysfunctional family and her father's status that alters her view of his value as her parent.The movie is rather stagy and most of the action is unspoken, and while that technique of telling this particular story seems exactly right to this viewer, there are some who will feel frustrated at the rather static pace of the film.
Ed Harris is superb as the wasted, quietly grieving has-been author, keeping his performance understated and in doing so creating a character that is indelible in our minds long after the movie is over.
In poor health and being taken care of by a former student (Amelia Warner) and a broken down rhythm guitarist (Will Ferrell), Harris is taken aback when his long lost daughter (Zooey Deschanel) shows up one day.
If Robin Williams could make the transition, surely Elf can.If you might enjoy multi-layered story telling, a tremendous performance by Zooey and can look past Will Ferrell, this movie has a lot to offer..
In addition to that, it has been some time since a film was able to be charming without being too forced, something I think they do not ultimately achieve, but it is not without merit.As mentioned above, it is worth the price of admission to watch Zooey Deschanel work her way from solipsistic bitch to humbled and hurt woman.
Adam Rapp did not over reach on any of these subplots and the performances, particularly by Deschanel and Harris, are very substantial, although Will Farrell was an interesting choice for his character.
In this way, what we get is a very introspective portrait of sad and lonely people; I know it doesn't sound right but that's all I'm going to say about the film.The thing is that when you love cinema, you watch films even if you don't know what they are about and you understand the nature of each movie; "Winter Passing's" nature is loneliness, not just its characters' but the sceneries' it's set in.
A weird and special actress (Zooey Deschanel), a comedian (Will Ferrell), a character actor (Ed Harris), and a rising English young star (Amelia Warren)They all work perfectly together, because each of them understands the fragile situation of their character and the rest.By the way, Harris is working really hard these days and has a lot of films we still haven't seen.
And about Ferrell, I wanted to say this after watching "Blades of Glory", a regular and overrated film I didn't write about in which the comedian was the best element...Whether he does comedy or drama, his hair is long or short, black or brown; Ferrell always constructs his characters from zero.
You should pay close attention to his work in any film.Rapp crafted a solid screenplay that's maybe a bit over sentimentalist, but he intelligently clarifies it in a crucial part of the movie.
However, in his piece, and like in the best dramas, things are said better by means of the images and not of the words; and that's always appreciated.Also, if anything, "Winter Passing" is living proof that Zooey Deschanel is a fantastic actress; that when she wants she can leave eccentricity and also do great things (because she does great things when she's eccentric); that she can carry a whole movie by herself and that it should happen more often.
Winter Passing introduces a few great characters inside of an interesting family reconciliation plot, but fails to deliver with the results.
Will Ferrell however, despite being the go-to comedic relief in a very somber film, simply cannot disappear outside of himself enough as an actor to ever truly play a character other then his endless Saturday night live variations, and to me his awareness almost condescends the film's emotional impact.
This lack of a thought out finale will make the emotional attachments made throughout the film with the main characters not as hard hitting as the movie perhaps intended, but still delivers a pretty solid, if a little unfulfilled, drama..
The premise is simple: Actress Reese Holden (played by Zooey Deschanel) is offered a lot of money if she can get hold of letters written to and by her late mother and father, novelist Don Holdin (played be Ed Harris).
This would have made a great short film, and I don't mean that as an insult.The idea of the plot is an interesting one, but didn't seem to hold my attention for the whole film, although the festival audience didn't seem to mind that much.Adam Rapp is off to a good start as a director, it seems he hasn't done much, but I look forward to his next film.
One of the challenges Winter Passing faces is getting the audience to empathize with characters enough to ride the film's emotional ups-and-downs.
The risk, however, is that the audience won't invest enough emotionally in the characters to really care about what happens to them.The acting was quite good; I'm always glad to see Will Ferrell push beyond his slapstick beginnings, and he and Zooey Deschanel have very believable chemistry.
In between, not a heckuva lot happens either.Girl has been estranged from her writer father for years, and sees a chance to make money off him, pays him an awkward visit, which last 2/3 of movie, and then, well, like I said, not much happens.Actually, movie had some funny parts, NEITHER involving the main characters, but involved her father's living arrangements.
Now THAT was rather humorous, I found.Lead character girl, while not a sleazebag, was very unlikable, and not the type of person you'd root for, nor even care if her part ended twenty minutes after movie started.Waste of time, and would NEVER see it again..
The description for Winter Passing on the advanced screening pass said that `Ed Harris stars as a world famous Pulitzer Prize winning author.'  This was not mentioned in the movie, but at one point we see a framed picture on the wall of the National Book Award.
Inconsistencies like this and poor writing about sum up Winter Passing, a bland and boring drama with self-indulgent characters that trivializes book publishing.Zooey Deschanel, who played Will Ferrell's love interest in Elf, stars as Reese, a cocaine addict living the bohemian actor's life in New York City.
After Lori Lansky, an editor from a big time book publishing house, offers her $100,000 to publish the letters between her father and her dead mother, Reese heads home to her reclusive father to find the letters.There she meets Corbit, an aspiring rocker played by Will Ferrell, and Shelly, who she first makes out to be her nemesis.
It almost seems like he just came out of film school, that Winter Passing tries to have edge with its drug addicts and self indulgent characters, but really has none.
Ed Harris gives the film's best performance as a once-brilliant writer on the verge of total collapse after the death of his wife and Will Ferrell shows once again the full capabilities of his range with this subtle, nuanced performance to go alongside his much broader roles of Ron Burgundy and Ricky Bobby.Though most of the actors do rise above the material, the material itself is often too cluttered and uneven to maintain the audience the whole way through.
Review: I quite enjoyed this movie, although it was a bit slow in the beginning and it doesn't really pick up until Will Ferrell and Ed Harris come into the picture.
All of the characters put in good performances, but it's Will Ferrell that makes the movie.
The main character, Zooey Deschanel, has a unemotional way of acting, which works in this movie and makes the movie what it is.
Stories of lost people attempting to rebuild their broken lives have been portrayed many times but there is a distinct style in Rapp's presentation and the way he brings it all together in this film wholely involving the viewer into the lives of these characters all of whom are searching for something.
For 90% of the movie Zooey Deschanel's and Ed Harris's characters are one way, and then in the last ten minutes they are suddenly completely different.
It didn't even fit the tone, and his sub-plot was a pointless way to pad out the running time.I didn't hate Winter Passing, I just thought that its story needed a lot more thought, focus, and fleshing out.
The bulk of the film was her return to the residue of the roots of her family, her dad, brilliantly underplayed by Ed Harris, as a reclusive world famous novelist, and two unusual people who looked after him.Try to forget that you ever saw Will Ferrell as a comedian and just accept him as Corbit, one of the caretakers.
I did not go into the film with much bias for or against the cast and director, and came away the same.I never quite got to the point of really caring about any of the characters -- I couldn't identify with nor "like'" the people portrayed, nor even find them very interesting.
Zooey tries real hard, but her "Anita" character from Almost Famous is out of place, nasty and unable to carry this film.While Will Ferrel and Ed Harris do well in their supporting roles, it is completely up to Ms. Deschanel to illuminate the plot, forward the action, and give us the resolution.
While the 25 year old has been working steadily since 1998, may be she just wasn't ready for the solo lead in a drama such as Winter Passing.We know she can sing and do comedy, perhaps a little seasoning is in order for her talents to carry a sincere dramatic role like this one..
In short, a young actress (Zooey Deschanel), daughter of two tortured but successful authors, returns to her Michigan home some months after her mother's suicide in search of love letters written by her parents during her courtship and willed to her by her mother, with an eye to selling them for publication.
The other is Shelly (Amelia Warner), a former student of Harris' who lives in the house and helps care for him.The characters are subtle, many faceted, beautifully written and exquisitely played.
I did not have a lot of expectations for this movie, but I really enjoy Ed Harris and have not seen a drama with Will Ferrell so picked it up.
Ed Harris delivered a realistic and dark performance, as did his film daughter, Zooey Deschanel.
The film delves into the dark, lost world of Reese Holdin (Deschanel), a young struggling actress, who runs to sex, cocaine, and self-inflicted pain to feel anything.
The character of Reese could easily be overly dramatized or even cliché, but it is Deschanel's amazing acting that carries the entire movie.
She tries to come to terms with her neglectful but good-intentioned father, humors the sweet attentions of Corbit, and resents Shelley, who seems to have taken over her role as a supportive daughter.Deschanel and Ferrell have an amazing acting chemistry, both in comedy and drama.
The film follows Reese, a young actress played by Zooey Deschanel, who returns home from New York when a book publisher asks her to find the correspondence between her parents, both famous authors.
Reese is drifting through life, so detached that she takes to slamming drawers on her hand just to feel something.She travels to her family home in Michigan, only to find that her ailing and eccentric father (Ed Harris) has taken in one of his former grad students (Amelia Warner) and a former Christian rocker (Will Ferrell), after the death of his wife and Reese's mother.
Reese's interactions with her father and the pseudo-family that has collected around him prompt her to expose her feelings about her childhood and relationship with her parents, and to come to terms with her own life.I thought this was an excellent film, especially considering this was Rapp's directorial debut.
Zooey Deschanel gives a wonderful, emotional performance as Reese, and Will Ferrell does a restrained, thoughtful turn as the rocker/handyman Corbit.
Rapp added that Ferrell was one of the sweetest people he's ever met.For Zooey Deschanel, Rapp had met with about 45 actresses, but felt that she had the kind of dynamics he was looking for, that she had an incredible intelligence, was very good with language, and at the same time had an incredible emotional life.
They worked to find a lot of female voices, like Cat Power and Dawn Landes, women around the same age as Reese, singing about things similar to what the character was going through in the movie.Asked about the scene where Harris and Ferrell are playing golf in a room in the house, Rapp said that he needed some way for Harris' character to destroy the room and turn it into something else, because the room was where he and his wife slept, and made love, and had their life.
WINTER PASSING (2006) **1/2 Zooey Deschanel, Ed Harris, Will Ferrell, Amelia Warner, Amy Madigan, Deirdre O'Connell, Sam Bottoms, Dallas Roberts, Anthony Rapp, Rachel Dratch.A Sort Of Homecoming.Zooey Deschanel is one of my favorite contemporary actresses on screen ever since I saw her as the Zen-like rock aficionado stewardess sister in "Almost Famous" and has continued to do yeoman like work since popping up in mainstream fare ("Elf") and indie jewels (stole the show from Jennifer Aniston in "The Good Girl") that she may be giving Parker Posey a run for her money as the Indie Queen.In this outing, a true showcase for her talent, she stars as a disillusioned and unhappily sardonic young woman named Reese Holden, a struggling actress who is the daughter of the brilliant genius of his generation author, Don Holden (Harris, in a rather low-key turn) who remains a recluse in their native rural Michigan.
At first Reese is hesitant and stand-offish but when she sees her miserably life is going nowhere fast with meaning less sex with an ex and a cancer stricken kitty (in arguably the film's saddest sequence) she takes the offer for $100, 000 ; half now half when she delivers and treks back home for a homecoming of sorts.Unannounced she arrives to find Don is rather unkempt and besides himself with grief over the recent suicide of his wife and Reese's mother that he has holed up in the battered outdoor garage, shirking his bedroom set of furniture onto the snowy backyard and converting that into a golf range for practice that he attends to daily with an odd young man named Corbit (Ferrell, dialed down low as well thankfully) a failed rock guitarist who looks over the frail Don for his own good and shares the cozy, yet old farmhouse with Shelly (Warner) a Brit who was one of Don's students who has also moved in sharing the care.
However she eventually comes to grips in the long run.Written and directed by Adam Rapp (playwright sibling of actor Anthony best known for RENT and has a cameo) the film is trapped in its play like acts yet also engages with some dark humor and occasionally well executed sequences of true drama.
Of course, she has a motive for visiting-collecting money if she can secure the love letters her dad wrote to her now deceased mother.The films just feels depressing and to me all the characters were stilted including Will Ferrell, who for a change acts in a dramatic role.dEd Harris is completely unrecognizable as the father.
Returning to Michigan, Reese finds that an ex-grad student and a would-be musician have moved in with her father, who cares more about his new friends than he does about his own health and well-being.The first thing you'll notice in this film is Zooey Deschanel's acting.
In the offbeat film WINTER PASSING, writer/director Adam Rapp brings an edgy and beautiful piece to the screen.
The film stars Zooey Deschanel (Elf), Will Ferrell (Stranger Than Fiction), Ed Harris (A History of Violence), and Amelia Warner (Quills), who each in turn deliver a strong performance.
I saw Winter Passing at a preview.Zooey Deschanel gives a solid performance as Reese Holden, as do Ed Harris (as writer Don Holden, her father) and Amelia Warner (as Shelley, a former student of Holden's), but when the biggest gasp from the audience comes from Rachel Dratch's appearance (as an MC at open mike night at a local bar) you know the movie is in trouble.
I didn't buy Reese's journey from self-destructive, sex crazed coke user at the beginning of the movie to loving daughter at the end.I absolutely did not buy Will Ferrell's character.