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Personal Velocity: Three Portraits (2002) More at IMDbPro »

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66 comments in total

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15 out of 15 people found the following comment useful :-
An Intimate Thread, 10 May 2002
Author: uberchick from New York, NY

I saw this film tonight at the First Annual Tribeca Film Festival and understood its success at Sundance. In short, this film is about the awakening of three different women in very different lives and circle around a news report of a shooting in Manhattan and an ensuing car accident. With the telling of each woman's tale, Miller uses a brilliant 'degree of relation' to the accident in order to develop an engaging and powerful film.

Delia casually watches the news report of the accident while waiting for the cook to bring up her next order in a small-town diner in upstate New York. Though the audience does not see a particularly unusual response that she has to it, we can imagine that her difficult circumstances allow her to relate to it on a level of shared human suffering.

Greta, who's story is told in a series of flashbacks, watches it on the morning news minutes before she has her epiphany about her failing marriage and the new turn that her life is taking as a prominent editor for a large Manhattan publishing house. Because it is the only scene in her story that takes place in the present time, the audience is left to wonder what sort of pivotal role the news report has played in her epiphany.

Finally, Paula's story brings the accident close to home as she is a witness to it. Her epiphany was a direct result of the accident since it was a near-death experience for her. She's not only shocked from the impact of it, but her struggle to explain it with cosmic signs allows her to transcend the accident and the events following it.

The performances were real, the direction was brilliant, and the common thread that ran through the intimate details of the women's awakenings flowed easily, despite the segmented telling of their tales. Miller's work in this film has inspired me to seek out her feature debut, _Angela_ as well.

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14 out of 14 people found the following comment useful :-
Personal triumph, 7 January 2003

Author: jotix100 from New York

This film, directed and written by Rebecca Miller, is a very satisfying experience for a new director who, here, is adapting her own material with a lot of relish and savoir-faire. There's a certain elegance in the way she treats her characters, always respectful, yet incisive. The only complain we could raise is the fact that each story is very short, so when we are still savoring each one, individually, Ms Miller, for reasons of timing, pulls them from under us.

The first story, Delia, shows a woman's worst fears in being married to a wife beater of the worst kind. She might have had dreams of making a happy home for her family, but her man has another thing in mind. This woman is a step above white trash. She tries hard to get herself together but everything keeps interfering with her independence. Played with gusto by Kyra Sedwick, Delia ends up as a waitress in order to support herself and the children. Her encounter with the bully from the restaurant is an exercise in how low they want her to go, but she comes out a winner.

The second story, Greta, is the best of the three. With the help of the great Parker Posey, this Greta comes out as the tough woman she wants everyone to think of her, but deep down, inside her, she's a vulnerable and frightened and unfulfilled over achiever. Ms Posey has never shown so many nuances in a performance that is so economic in the terms that are dictated by the length of the story. We get to know more about her than the narrator ever tells us. Every expression on this actress face is true. It's surprising what has been achieved here with the collaboration of the director and the player.

The last story, Paula, is the weakest. It's all about a very confused young woman who's out on the road to see her parents. She has very deep problems. Along the way she picks up a hitchhiker who stays with her through the trip. Paula is in a voyage of discovering, but little does she know that what she needs is what she has left at home: her Haitian man, who obviously cares a lot about her. As played by Fairuza Balk, she shows the turmoil in her head that only she can resolve.

We hope Miss Miller's next time out will be very soon because she's got a feel for getting inside her characters and finding angles they didn't even suspect of having.

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10 out of 11 people found the following comment useful :-
DV masterpiece, 4 March 2005

Author: mbucky from United States

Personal Velocity is one of the most beautifully shot digital films I have ever seen. The story is uniquely touching and develops a woman's perspective on life and love into a series of lives and events. The cinematography by Ellen Kuras defies the documentary roughness of the digital experience. Often the insert shots in the film are the most enthralling, focusing on small objects to extract the film's delicate beauty. Defying the need to connect the narratives, the film manages to create thematic connections, and forces the viewer to think more about the images and the characters' emotional journeys. One major drawback, the narrator is distracting, but if you can dismiss the intriguing insertion of a male voice over a female narrative, you can enjoy the interesting perspective on a woman's film. Wonderfully shot, well-written, worth-watching.

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6 out of 6 people found the following comment useful :-
A film that defines what independent means., 6 January 2003
Author: Chris Knipp from Berkeley, California

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Personal Velocity' is a kind of omnibus film, three stories, each quite distinct, but all by the same author, Rebecca Miller, who has adapted them and directed them for her own movie, directing three different women in the main roles in each.

Kyra Sedgwick is Delia, a slut, or a reformed high school slut who married a wife beater and finally wakes up, escapes to a haven for battered women, and then takes off with her kids upstate to stay with a school friend and work as a waitress. At the story's end, she's back to satisfying young men, but now very, very perfunctorily, and with the boundaries clearly established. Ms. Sedgewick has the sexiness and grandeur of Jessica Lange but not quite the strength: this is a wonderful role for her.

The only trouble with this movie is that each segment is so short.

Parker Posey in the next one is Greta, a sophisticated, driven woman with a powerful famous lawyer father and a prime Eastern establishment education married to a nice guy who's a New Yorker fact checker and whose family of origin look grain fed and wholesome. As the story begins, she pulls ahead when a hot Asian novelist picks her to move away from her cookbook editing to thin out the `fat' ruthlessly from his new MS. Before long, the novel is out, and she's a huge success, dumping her original publishing house and taking the hot author (now a beau) with her---and about to dump her husband. She admits she has always had a weakness in the area of fidelity.

The third segment some people have told me they think is the weakest. I guess that's because it's about an unformed girl, Paula, a runaway, played by the talented, odd Fairuza Balk, who has settled down in New York with a nice Haitian man, but runs away again when a freak accident causes another man she's walking down the street with to get hit by a car and killed. She spins off in her car going toward the country, and picks up a teenage boy, himself a runaway, who is sweet and cute but turns out to have been horribly abused. They drop by her mom's house (her step dad is very cold), and then she takes the boy to a motel, where she treats his wounds. Next day, he steals her car from her at lunchtime, and she heads back to her boyfriend, chastened and apparently eager to keep the child beginning to grow in her womb.

What makes these stories so good is that they're raw and not easy to take, but they still manage a lightness and detachment, partly through a male voiceover narration for each character. Each story creates a vivid picture of something you can hardly avoid calling `life' as risky and malleable, dangerous but full of exciting highs and lows. Each character is ruthlessly and incisively delineated, including the minor ones; indeed, no one is `minor,' as the presence of people like Wallace Shawn (as Greta's boss) and Ron Leibman (as her father) in mere cameos makes clear.

Is the author the best person to direct a film of her own tales? We'd have to decide that on a case-by-case basis; but Rebecca Miller has achieved a happy balance here, and this tough but unassuming movie belongs with the absolute cream of the year's American independent crop. If there is such a thing as an essential independent film, this is what that means and why the distinction from more `mainstream' films is worthwhile.

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5 out of 5 people found the following comment useful :-
Engaging and Different Movie About the Lives of Three Women, 19 October 2004

Author: Claudio Carvalho from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

'Personal Velocity: Three Portraits' is an engaging and different movie about the lives of three women. With great direction, camera, narration and performance of the cast, it hooks the attention of the viewer until the last scene. The stories have in common an accident and three woman intending to change their lives leaving their mates. Delia (Kyra Sedgwick) is the daughter of a hippie, abused in her adolescence by her friends, married with a former boy-friend of high-school and having three children. She leaves her husband, who beats her, with the children. In a new town, beginning a new life working as a waitress and living on favor in the garage of a high school friend, she repeats the same mistake of her youth. Greta (Parker Posey) is an editor, who has never gotten close to her father after his divorce of her mother. She is married with a simple guy who loves her, but she is sort of nymphomaniac. When she becomes successful in her career, she gets closer to her father again and returns to her former ambitious way of life. Paula (Fairuza Balk) is a woman who left her family and moved alone to Manhattan. She is rescued from the streets by a man, and starts living with him. When she gets pregnant, she becomes confused with the situation and leaves home. An accident first and an incident with a lonely and wounded boy later helps her to decide her destiny. 'Personal Velocity: Three Portraits' is a nice and attractive independent low budget movie. I have really not understood why the stories are narrated by a man, since they are about women. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): 'O Tempo de Cada Um' ('The Time of Each One')

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7 out of 10 people found the following comment useful :-
Strike one out of three, 17 August 2003
Author: Philby-3 from Sydney, Australia

A critic I read before seeing this movie (Lynden Barber of the Sydney Morning Herald) opined that it was a book illustrated with film rather than a proper movie. He's right, but that does not make it a complete write-off. There is as much voice-over as in a football match (why use a male?) but the visuals still convey some of the stories, which are not all without interest.

There are three separate stories of women having trouble with men; two from the working class and one an upwardly mobile book editor. They are tenuously connected by a street incident. One has a bashing husband, another, a husband she has outgrown, and the third has problems with her boyfriend, her stepfather and her maternal instinct. All seem to favour running away as the solution; stand and fight is not the female way, at least not in New York State.

The author of the original short stories is Rebecca Miller, who also directed from her own screenplay. This certainly accounts for the literary quality. Rebecca has a famous literary father, the great Arthur Miller, and I suspect he is in the film somewhere as a character or at least a presence. The working class girl stories are too trite to be involving (though very well played by Kyra Sedgwick and Fairuza Balk) but the middle story of the book editor (played coolly by Parker Posey) rings true. The use of digital video suits the subject-matter (Dogma 95 on the Hudson) and the whole thing is competently realised. It is the weakness in the first and third stories that disappoints.

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3 out of 3 people found the following comment useful :-
Three terrific actresses / Three excellent short films, 5 June 2003
Author: kinolieber

The best thing about this film are the three superb performances by the lead actresses in each segment. It's also a chance to explore the potential for short form film narrative by putting three short films together to create a full length feature. If these three films had been produced individually, almost no one would ever see them. The film is exciting too, as an example of the artistic possibilities of low budget digital film making. As others have mentioned the narration almost sinks the movie. I'd love to see a DVD alternative version without it.

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4 out of 5 people found the following comment useful :-
Better Than the Ordinary Movie Fodder, 13 May 2003

Author: lunterborn (lunterborn@aol.com) from San Antonio

This movie is the story of three woman, told in separate segments. Each of the characters has to some extent engaged in self-delusion as to who they really are as persons and each one finds herself in the midst of a major life crisis. As each character deals with their situation, they begin to find out who they really are as persons and to find a possible path to self liberation, happiness and fulfillment in their lives. Delia(Kyra Sedgwick), is an abused wife and mother, who finds personal liberation by finding the courage to finally leave her abusive husband, and then finds her personal dignity and power by rediscovering her sexuality. Greta(Parker Posey), is a wife and daughter, who has long suffered, first by being caught in the middle in a struggle between her powerful, ambitious father and her weaker, more fragile mother for her love and affection, then later in an act of rebellion against her father, ends up in a loving but passionless marriage in which she has suppressed all her own personal ambitions. An opportunity for success rekindles in her all her own passions and ambition, as she struggles to finally break free from the influence of her parents, to come to terms with her husband and marriage and to be who she really is as a person. Paula(Fairuza Balk) is a young woman, who finds herself pregnant and who after a terrible accident, in a state of shock starts out on a journey to try and escape and make sense of what is happening to her. An encounter with an abused runaway, helps her refocus on her own plight and discover her own ability to care about others besides her self. All the acting in the film is excellent, but Parker Posey as Greta really stands out. This is the first film that makes use of Parker's ability as an actress to convey emotion and internal conflict, without dialog, simply by the expression on her beautiful face, and it is absolutely stunning to watch. She turns Greta, who could have been very unsympathetic, into a character that one can care about. This beautifully written, beautifully acted movie is very intelligent and very complex. One that makes the viewer think deeply. Which in an age of almost total shallowness in the majority of films (all flash, no thought!), a movie that stimulates thought is a true breat of fresh air. There are no tight, neatly wrapped up endings in this movie, you have no way of knowing if the characters have made the right choices in their lives. This makes it tough for audiences and critics to embrace this movie, but if you do look deeply at it, and think about it, you will come to appreciate and love it.

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5 out of 7 people found the following comment useful :-
A Beautifully Acted, Melancholy Film Experience, 22 October 2005

Author: Regret1017 from New Zealand

It is so hard to find a film that actually elicits a genuine emotional response from its viewers, but you need look no further than "Personal Velocity". The direction and scriptwriting are both wonderful and the acting is definitely award-worthy. "Personal Velocity" explores a major event in the lives of three different women, Delia (Kyra Sedgwick), Greta (Parker Posey) and Paula (Fairuza Balk). The first segment of the three explores Delia's quest to rebuild her life after escaping from an abusive household. Kyra Sedgwick is completely believable as Delia and delivers one of the best performances of her career. The second segment tells the story of Greta, an unknown businesswoman, suddenly thrust into the limelight and all of the troubles that it brings. Parker Posey, while not quite as good as she usually is in comedic films (see her amazing turn in The House of Yes), still gives an admirable performance. The third and final segment is one of the most emotional, showing a confused young woman, Paula, witnessing a tragic accident and hitting the road in panic, where she picks up a badly injured hitch-hiker. Fairuza Balk captures the character's quirks perfectly, giving you the impression of watching a real-life happening. The script is wonderfully timed and striking, with the exception of some of the narrator's lines, the cinematography perfectly captures the mood, confusion and panic of the storyline, and the three actresses show the potential for brilliance that all three have. All in all, a beautiful, melancholy film experience.

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2 out of 2 people found the following comment useful :-
Three intriguing stories,three potentially unsatisfying conclusions, 2 May 2006

Author: S.R. Dipaling from Topeka, Kansas, USA

Writer and director Rebecca Miller(daughter of legendary playwright Arthur) patches together three stories of three different women for this film and the movie itself is quite an intriguing curiosity for it.

Delia(Kyra Sedgwick,familiar yet still distinctive here)is an abused housewife and mother who's only known really one thing about herself-her sexuality-and has to find a way out of her sad,low-esteemed predicament,while wondering if she should use her sexuality or not; Greta(Parker Posey,for whom the type of roles she could inhabit are practically limitless) is a career-driven woman whose marriage is peaceful but uninspiring; and Paula(Fairuza Balk,whose angry eyes and wild visage is an ironic contrast to the scared character she's playing),has escaped a horrifying accident and now aids a runaway teen,all the while mindful of the fact that she's just learned she's pregnant.

I must say I was quite pleased with elements of the movie:the narration,the anthology of it and,of course,the actors,who all are very fine here. But I suppose what left me dry here was the way these stories played out. I will not go into any detail so as to inadvertently throw out spoilers,but it to me felt like these stories were resolved in ways that seemed only evident to the writer herself. I read one reviewer describe these tales as sorts of "Women's lib" stories,and that may be true,and not being a woman myself and certainly not a feminist,I suppose if these endings seemed lost on me,well,that's my problem I suppose.

Not a movie for those who absolutely NEED their films to have a sort of set,rising-plot/climax/denouement model in order to digest their usage of 90 min to 2 hours of time,but I suspect that the film's creator doesn't really care about that. She set out to portray three ordinary yet intriguing characters and,for the most part,I feel like she succeeded.

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