Sweet, sweet Marisa Tomei — I know the Best Supporting Actress Oscar is really yours, no matter what they say about Jack Palance’s eyesight.
Part of Tomei’s appeal, for me, is her genuineness. No matter what sort
of role she’s playing — and she’s plenty good at flinty, brassy and
flirty — Tomei gives it a nice sheen of rootedness that’s always in perfect lockstep with the tone of the film surrounding her, be it My Cousin Vinny‘s gum-smacking impudence or Factotum‘s world-weary but dryly comedic desperation.
, for whom accumulated worries start to get the best of her. Her anxieties manifest themselves in delusions and visions of increasingly horrific proportions. Believing that she’s going insane, Danika seeks psychiatric help from Dr. Evelyn Harris (Regina Hall).</p>
<p>The few loose thriller elements of the film don’t particularly hang well together, but Tomei’s solid performance — she’s never hysterical, merely confused and worn down — and t<b>he script’s concentration on seemingly pedestrian family matters that slowly take on increasing importance help imbue <i>Danika</i> with </b><b>an involving and smartly pitched tone</b>. If it seems very much like a small screen production — not necessarily in production value, but area of exploration — that’s less a crack than simply an honest assessment; like with any number of episodic entertainments, you could walk in halfway through this production and still find some reward, all without pining for what you missed. A few of the film’s third act “shock inclusions” are dubious, but <b>the final twist ending is a nice little doozy</b>, something to be appreciated.</p>
<p>Presented in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen, <i>Danika</i> comes with a 5.1 Dolby digital surround sound audio track, Spanish and English subtitles, an unbilled 2.0 English stereo track and <b>a lightly accented audio commentary track with director Ariel Vroman</b>. Composer Gilad Benamram also sits in on this track, but is mostly quiet until Vroman occasionally prods him with a query or set-up regarding a musical composition or cue. <b>Vroman talks openly and honestly about the movie’s 25-day shoot</b> (with downtown Los Angeles largely subbing for Baltimore, save for some captured footage by a skeleton crew of three folks), and if the calling out of various continuity flubs is sometimes charming and goofy, the frank discussion of the movie’s changes in the editing room paint a portrait of a less convincing and convinced auteur. He namechecks the aforementioned <i>Jacob’s Ladder</i> as an influence, along with Roman Polanski’s <i>Repulsion</i>, but I’m somehow doubting that those films were re-jiggered in post-production to the degree that it sounds like this one was.</p>
<p>Also included as bonus features, alongside previews for other First Look releases, are <b>a staid collection of black-and-white storyboards</b> and <b>an 11-minute making-of featurette</b> that includes interview snippets with Bierko, Vroman, producers Lorena David and Mark Roberts, and screenwriter Joshua Liebner (a Los Angeles schoolteacher)… <b>and no Tomei?!</b> That’s criminal, really. <b>C+ (Movie) B- (Disc)</b></p>
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