Winter Passing
Reese (Zooey Deschanel,All the Real Girls) is a brusk barmaid/actress, toiling away in the East Village fringe circuit. Her father is reclusive J.D. Salinger-like author Don Holdin (Ed Harris,A History of Violence). Reese hasn't seen him for years. One night after a performance, an editor from a major publishing house (Amy Madigan,Carnivàle), offers $100,000 for the letters he and her late mother exchanged during their courtship. Reese turns her down flat. Eventually, she changes her mind and takes off for rural Michigan to retrieve them. She finds the disheveled, hard-drinking Don living with former student Shelly (Amelia Warner,Quills) and ex-Christian rocker Corbit (a disarmingly straight-faced Will Ferrell). It's a bizarre, if functional arrangement: Shelly cooks the meals, while Corbit serves as security guard. All try to make nice, but the coke-snorting, insult-flinging Reese won't have any of it. She just wants to find the letters and go. This turns out to be trickier than expected, especially once she actually sits down to read them. Directed by and adapted from his two-act play, Adam Rapp'sWinter Passingis the kind of well-intentioned independent where longstanding family issues are solved in just a few days (to the gentle strains of Cat Power and the Shins). Nonetheless, it offers the unique opportunity to see Deschanel and Ferrell,Elf's charmingly mis-matched couple, cast against type. As expected, Harris provides solid support, while Warner's clear-eyed Shelly is the true heart of the story.--Kathleen C. Fennessy