Andrew Scott shines in Brendan Higgins' and Simon Fellows' unusual drama, A DARK PLACE

An oddball endeavor if ever there was one, A DARK PLACE (originally titled Steel Country) takes place in small-town Pennsylvania but was filmed in Georgia with a British director (Simon Fellows, shown just below) at the helm and its leading actors all from Ireland.

Whatever: The movie works, and in fact does a lot more than that. It gives the fine actor Andrew Scott (shown on poster, right, and further below) the best role I've yet seen him play, as it very unusually and interestingly places a character somewhere on the spectrum of Aspergers syndrome in the center of this tale involving a child's disappearance, a cover-up, and a desperate attempt to do the right thing.

Small-town America in the time of Trump (the first thing we see in the film is a Trump placard on a shabby front lawn), with its own special structure serving the wealthy and powerful, is front and center here, with everything working just fine, so long as people know their place -- and stay in it.

Mr. Fellows does a good job of bringing Brendan Higgins' first-class screenplay to life. His pacing is steady and increasingly fraught, as our difficult hero, Donald, a sanitation worker (played by Mr. Scott), attempts to learn what really happened to the young boy who used to wave to to him daily on his sanitation route and is now said to have accidentally drowned.

As the information Donald gleans points ever more clearly toward a cover-up, the powers-that-be -- from police to community "leaders" -- close ranks. What some critics have pointed to as preposterous and/or risible plot turns strike TrustMovies as more like business-as-usual in small town America.

And so, anything goes, and by the finale our hero is lucky to have been left in one piece. What he feels he must do is thus horrible yet perfectly understandable, under these Trump-land circumstances and those of his own constantly anxious state.

Mr. Scott's rich, lovely and angry performance as the quirky, unstable Donald carries the movie. He is as difficult as he is worth caring for and about. And the two most important women in his life -- his "ex" (played sadly and smartly by Denise Gough, below),

and his co-worker, Donna, who also carries a torch for the guy (a wonderful job by Bronagh Waugh, below) -- make Donald's exasperating-but-worth-it combination painfully obvious.

His daughter (a clear-headed and loving performance from Crista Beth Campbell, below) is the only character to whom he can comfortably turn for the sustenance he craves.

That those three lead performances (by Scott, Gough and Waugh) are being played by Irish actors doing a surprisingly good job giving us Pennsylvania accents adds to the unusual quality of the film, and a special nod must be given to the fine screenplay from Mr. Higgins, who captures small-town creepiness and unexpected kindness with equal care and believability.

Two scenes stand out among many that nail our hero's singular and difficult world: his sudden verbal use of his and Donna's names as a reason for them not to connect, and another, purely visual moment, as Donald quietly sits in the middle of a closed circle of drawing pencils, all arranged by color. In a world more just, in which Academy members dare venture beyond what the box-office and/or typical media pundits offer up, Mr. Scott's performance might draw Oscar consideration.

This quiet, sad little film is so much better than many other big-budget dramatic wanna-bes featuring "name" actors and/or directors that you ought not let it get by without a watch. From Shout! Studios and running just 89 minutes, A Dark Place arrived on Blu-ray, DVD and digital download last week -- for purchase and/or rental.

JANE WANTS A BOYFRIEND: Sullivan/Kerr's feel-good look at autism and relationships

TrustMovies admits that he may have a blind spot so far as films about the handi-capped are concerned. He's seen two of these in as many months and found both severely wanting. First came the bi-polar romance Touched With Fire, and now we get the Asperger love story, JANE WANTS A BOYFRIEND, in which a young woman who seems (depending on the moment) somewhere between moderate and severe on the Asperger's spectrum falls in love with a young man who, for an awfully long time, hasn't a clue to her condition.

As written by Jarret Kerr and directed by William Sullivan (the latter is shown at right), the movie plays fast and loose with plotting and believability from the get-go, as the two sisters -- the "normal" one, Bianca, played by Eliza Dushku, (below, left) and the "damaged" Jane, by Louisa Krause, below right) -- are shown at work and play, with the former having the lead in what appears to be an important and professional production of Shakes-peare's A Midsummer Night's Dream and the latter working on the costumes for the show. Really? Considering what happens here, they would both have been fired long before.

Even if we accept this odd work situation, we're soon confronted by an even less believable occurrence. Why would not Bianca tell her very good friend, Jack (Gabriel Ebert, below), about her sister's situation rather than screaming at him to get lost? In a later scene, Bianca's boyfriend, Rob (Amir Arison, two photos below), takes what seems like forever to finally spill the beans about Jane to Jack. More than half the film is over before the boyfriend of the title learns the truth about his would-be girl.

Jane's behavior/breakdowns are quite over-the-top, and how Mr. Sullivan has chosen to film some of them just adds to the eye-rolling. Regarding this production of Shakespeare -- from what we hear of the dialog, at least -- while I have greatly admired this actress' work elsewhere, I would advise Ms Dushku to leave the Bard alone. This also appears to be one of the least professional productions of Midsummer to ever grace the boards.

The "first date" with Mr. Right that we're shown would be terrific in a movie about people with more "everyday" problems, but here it simply curdles, as does so much else in this film that insists on a feel-good ending in which, yes, just about everything seems to have been solved. Or am I reading too much into all this? The road ahead will be be paved with prob-lems, for certain, but the moviemakers insist on an upbeat finale for all.

The best of the handicapped love stories I've so far seen remain Adam, in which Hugh Dancy and Rose Byrne tread the romantic landscape much more believably, and the Spanish movie Me, Too (Yo, Tambien) in which a Down Syndrome young man attempts a relationship with a co-worker.

As the Asperger-plagued Jane, Ms Krause (shown above and further above), who was so terrific in the underseen shot-on-cell-phone King Kelly), is probably as good as she could be in this role, given what the moviemakers put her through. The supporting cast is fine, as well. But what this movie achieves in terms of anything even vaguely real proves piddling indeed.

Jane Wants a Boyfriend -- from FilmBuff and running 101 minutes -- opens in theaters (in NYC you can view it at the Cinema Village) this Friday, March 25, and simultaneously on VOD. On Thursday, March 24, however, it will play a single 9:55pm performance at Laemmle's Music Hall 3 in Beverly Hills.

In Morgan Matthews' A BRILLIANT YOUNG MIND, a smartypants adapts to life and love

Asperger is fast becoming the syndrome of choice for movie-makers who want to explore smarter-than-thou characters who also suffer from not fitting in. All the better, of course, if a happy ending can be arranged in which their skill allows them to triumph over their oppressors. A BRILLIANT YOUNG MIND (formerly known as X+Y), written by James Graham and directed by Morgan Matthews, based in part on the latter's earlier documentary feature, Beautiful Young Minds, somewhat subverts this scenario to good effect.

If, as many viewers noted about last year's award-winner The Theory of Everything, there was damned little science shown in this movie about one of the world's great scientists, that is not true of this new film about an Asperger-plagued mathematics whiz, nicely limbed by Asa Butterfield (below, of Hugo and Ender's Game). We get a good dose of higher math here, and the experience is bracing -- even if we don't fully understand that math. Mr. Matthews, shown at left, has wisely combined a smart mixture of math, handicap, coming-of-age, and competition.

If the end result seems attained a tad too easily, there is also a sacrifice involved -- which goes some distance in making the movie more palatable for thinking adults. And if the filmmakers' "take" on Asperger is nowhere near as strong and real, say, as in the better movie, Adam -- which makes the syndrome something not able to be conquered by love and/or wishful thinking -- at least viewers can take respite in the raft of excellent performances that this newer movie offers up.

As the math whiz's mom, veteran Sally Hawkins (above, right) gives another dazzlingly energetic -- funny, moving, real -- performance, aside the two men who mean most in her life: her late husband (a lovely job by Martin McCann) and the tutor with emotional and physical problems of his own who has taken her son under wing (Rafe Spall, above, left).

Add to the mix another crack job by the versatile Eddie Marsan (above) as the group tutor who travels with the kids to Taiwan for the qualifying round of the Math Olympiad, and you have a terrific little ensemble. Hawkings, Marsan and Spall are masters at combining quirky reality with the kind of improvisational style that ends up seeming like life "heightened" -- funny, moving, surprising.

A little love interest is provided by Jo Yang (above, left) as the Chinese girl our hero hooks up with in Taiwan. But the movie's most memorable performance, oddly enough, comes from a supporting actor, Jake Davies, below, who plays the angriest, darkest of the young contenders. Davies, together with the role Graham has written for him, brings all the complexity and difficulties of Aspergers to the fore, confronting us with the kind of reality that feel-good films can't handle. A Brilliant Young Mind is good, all right. But I'll bet you'll wish it were better.

The movie, from Samuel Goldwyn Films and running 111 minutes, opens this Friday, September 11, in New York City and Los Angeles, with a nationwide rollout to follow soon.

New from MHz Networks: the original Danish/ Swedish television collaboration, THE BRIDGE

Don't worry if a television program titled THE BRIDGE (Bron/Broen) sounds somehow familiar, but if its countries of origin -- Sweden and Denmark -- don't immediately come to mind, you're probably thinking of the remade American version that aired last year starring Diane Kruger and Demian Bechir, another season of which is about to begin. TrustMovies didn't watch the American go-round (wanting to wait for the chance to see it commercial-free), though his spouse did and highly recommended it. Then the opportunity came to watch the original Scandinavian series on DVD via the four disc package recently presented by the popular purveyor of quality foreign television, MHz Networks.

Operating on the assumption that an original might be better than a remake (we won't even go into comparisons of American television vis a vis European, as in Borgen vs The West Wing), I took a chance on The Bridge, and I am awfully glad that I did. This is a superior police procedural/mystery/family drama that grabs you from its first hour-long episode and holds you through to the finale (there are ten episodes in all). And it is an actual finale, by the way: none of this pretend-to-end business, as in the American remake of The Killing.

My partner, in fact, sat down to watch some of the first episode with me, and then checked in periodically for a few minutes during several others. "The American version seems to have followed this one almost completely," he noted, but admitted after a time that the original was better done than its follow-up. That may be due to location. The story begins with the body of a murdered woman, above, found exactly in the middle of a bridge separating Sweden and Denmark. One half of her body lies in Sweden, the other in Denmark. In the American version, the locale is the U.S. and Mexico -- two countries hugely different from each other, while Scandinavia is fairly similar culturally from country to country.

Although directed and written by a number of different people, the series stays steadfast and true to itself for the entire season. So carefully conceived and acted are all the characters that it is difficult to determine much variation in style throughout. Finding the murderer of the woman on the bridge -- and other murders to come -- is paramount here, but within that search a number of sub-plots surface, some directly connected to our main one, others seemingly not so much. All are fascinating and executed very well.

The two lead characters -- one cop from Sweden (Sofia Helen, above, left), the other from Denmark (Kim Bodnia, above, right) -- are beautifully played and keep the series rolling forward. She has something akin to Asperger syndrome, though the medical name is never stated. How he comes to understand and appreciate her (she's terrifically good at her job) is part of the joy of the series. The two leads are not nearly so conventionally attractive as are Kruger and Bichir in the American version, and this helps keep things more believable. Their acting is very strong, however (particularly Ms Helen), as is that of every last character on view.

By the time this first series wraps up, we've been thrust into lives that have been turned upside down, sometimes for good. This is a very dark show, but with numerous flecks of humor scattered throughout. (How our leading lady goes about trolling for sex is one of the highlights -- as believable as it is initially surprising.)

As in life, we cannot count on much of anything, and while coincidence does play a part here, it is never foremost in the scheme of things (a la Downton Abbey). Instead, character and past performance create the present experience, and it is not, for the most part, a pretty one.

The Bridge can be purchased now via MHz Networks and elsewhere. Click here to order.

Get your fill of NYC's subways: Sam Fleischner's odyssey, STAND CLEAR of the CLOSING DOORS

In STAND CLEAR OF THE CLOSING DOORS, his ode to the New York City subway system and the immigrant families who use it, cinematographer and now filmmaker Sam Fleischner thrusts us into the life and mind of Ricky, a teenage kid who is clearly somewhere on the autistic spectrum (maybe Asperger Syndrome plus) as he strikes out on his own to experience... well, the world of the subways. We also meet his family: a sister, for whom Ricky is mostly a chore; his mother, who earns the family's keep cleaning apartments of the 1 per cent; and an absentee father who initially is heard only via phone. Oh, yes: though it is unclear whether or not the kids were born in the USA, mom and dad are definitely undocumented illegals.

The movie initially shows us the life of this family in quick, smart, and mostly exposition-free scenes that Mr. Fleischner, shown at left, serves up from a kind of you-are-there, documentary-like perspective, with visuals and dialog that move swiftly along. We see just enough to make us empathize with the family's mother (a nice job by newcomer Andrea Swarez Pas, below) and semi-detest her clueless, disinterested employer; we also understand (though we may not much appreciate) her very American-educated daughter (Azul Zorrilla) and her attitude toward mom and brother; and finally we even understand the family's father (Tenoch Huerta) and his position. Macho and undocumen-ted don't seem to coexist easily here in millennial North America.

Interestingly, it's the movie's main character that proves the least commanding and finally creates a certain slackness in the film. It isn't a matter of performance (newcomer Jesus Sanchez-Velzez, below) is all you could ask in the role), but rather the kind of sameness that sets in regarding what Ricky appears to see, feel and express. (The sub-plot of a kindly shoe store clerk -- played by Marsha Stephanie Blake -- who helps mom make signage and interact with the police, comes off as a little too much like vamping.)

Some of the scenes Ricky witnesses in the subway -- a mom trying to explain to her child why she is good mother, a fight that breaks out physically between a woman and man -- seem more interesting and immediate than that of our hero, and we find ourselves wanting to know more about them, partly because, at some point, we realize that we're never going to know much more about Ricky. As written by Rose Lichter-Marck and Micah Bloomberg, the screenplay moves back and forth in standard fashion between Ricky and his distraught mom and (eventually) sister and father.

While a certain amount of suspense develops, as Hurricane Sandy bears down on New York City, and the subway is about to be closed, somehow the outcome here is never really in doubt. Mom despairs of Ricky's having none of his usual medication, but he seems to manage this (and a lack of food, except for a bag of chips and a banana) rather well, and at 100 minutes, the movie is at least ten minutes too long for the content on hand. Hence the sense of repetition and slackness that develops.

Still, Fleischner, who earlier co-wrote and co-directed the oddly charming and deadpan travel/road comedy, Wah Do Dem, has managed to give us, and Ricky, a very real taste of the New York subways -- from the speechifying Jesus freaks and break-dancing kids "entertaining" their captive audiences to the rude/crude/uglies (like the young man who pours some kind of liquid over Ricky's head) and even a few nice folk, too. All of this is quite bracing. For awhile.

Stand Clear of the Closing Doors (a title that will need no explanation for New Yorkers), from Oscilloscope, opens this Friday, May 23, in New York City at the Cinema Village.

DVD Pick--ADAM: Hugh Dancy & cast light up Max Mayer's Asperger syndrome movie

Much, much better than any disease-of-the-
month TV or movie offering, ADAM -- which made its DVDebut this past week -- is a re-
markable film in a num-
ber of ways, primarily via the memorable performance from Hugh Dancy in the title role.

Adam, the character, suffers from Asperger's syndrome, one of the disorders on a rather wide autism spectrum. Having known over the years a couple of people whom I believe to be victims of this odd disability, it seems to me that Asperger's itself involves a fairly wide spectrum of behavior, from that which is mild, though noticeable, to the more severe variety that can make social adjustment and independent living difficult.

Written with clarity and specificity and then directed for spontaneity by relative newcomer Max Mayer (shown at right), the movie concentrates on Adam, his trouble with what we might term normal interaction and his growing need to master this, as a relationship begins to develop between him and Beth, a young woman who has just moved into the same New York City apartment building. As the film opens, Adam has lost his father/caregiver & so the road ahead seems particularly fraught.

Because Adam is played by Mr. Dancy (shown ar right, above and below, and at bottom) and Beth by Rose Byrne (at left, above and below) -- two relatively young and highly photogenic actors -- viewers will immediately know they are in "narrative movie" territory rather than the documentary format. Both performers are highly capable, however, and here play down their looks to stress instead honest and varied behavior. Dancy, a slight actor with a particularly beatific face and expressive wide eyes, is so on-target in his moment-to-moment moves from repetitive behavior to the sudden awareness of same, followed by the inability of knowing how to combat this that watching him is a revelation and a treat. His beauty of countenance makes the task easier, and it is quite obvious why Beth is attracted to his visage, as well as to his vulnerability and need. I have not heard much talk of Dancy garnering a best actor nomination, but his work here certainly deserves a nod.

For her part, Ms Byrne is as good as I have ever seen her: always quick and smart but with those in-between moments in which you can see how undecided, even afraid, she is. In the very fine sup-
porting cast are Peter Gallagher (shown below) as Beth's protec-
tive father and Amy Irving as her mom. It's wonderful to see both of these actors working, even in small roles, at their peak -- and in a good film, to boot. Frankie Faison, too, brings great strength and decency to his role as the building super and Adam's friend.

Viewers may find themselves buffeted by the events, hoping against hope for an outcome perhaps "happier" than it is real. How Mr. Mayer, his cast and crew, wrap the story up is splendid indeed, like a taste of chocolate you've been craving that turns out to be dark, rich -- and quite bittersweet. Adam, released via Fox Searchlight, received a very wide release (for an independent film), and so should be available for sale or rent at most walk-in video outlets and, of course, from those online.