Zack Parker's SCALENE presents an interesting triangle -- and yet another chance for Margo Martindale to shine

SCALENE, the title of the film from Zack Parker, is not the name of its main character, played with great ferocity and her usual finesse by the wonderful Margo Martindale. Instead, it refers to a couple of things: the type of triangle  that the brain-damaged son of the character played by Ms Martindale is asked to put together during his visit to a doctor, as well as a kind of stand-in for the three main characters in the film, who form a three-sided and quite unequal triangle, and from whose viewpoints we witness their story as it unfurls -- beginning at nearly the finale and then backtracking so that we see and understand the tale more fully.

Reality, for filmmaker Parker (shown at right), proves multifaceted and graspable only by seeing all sides of the situation. What makes Scalene particularly redolent and sophisticated in terms of its storytelling technique is that Parker doesn't hit us over the head with with any obvious she says/he says/she says rendition or by separating the film into three sections or by repeating entire segments from another person's viewpoint. No: Instead he begins at the climax and then circles back, filling in the blanks via story and characterization alone. In this way we slowly come to understand the situation and how and why it evolved into the shocking mess it has now become.

The story is simple enough. Janice Trimble (Ms Martindale, above), rather than hospitalizing her grown son, Jakob (Adam Scarimbolo, below) -- who has suffered since middle school with brain damage due to inhaling some unhelpful airplane glue -- intends to care for him on her own.

To this end she hires a young college girl, Paige (Hanna Hall, at left), to act as her part-time home-health-care aid. Over time, however, Paige grows fond of Jakob and begins to feel that perhaps Janice is physically abusing her son. What to do? The choices made at this point, which lead to choices made later by others, could be called into question as not the smartest way to handle things. Yet, in no case are these choices beyond the bounds of reality, so we -- and the characters -- must deal with them as they are.

All three actors are good, and Ms Martindale is exceptional. I ques-tion, however, the casting of Ms Hall as a college-age student. Physically speaking, she simply looks way too old; in some scenes with the actress who plays her mother, you'll imagine the two are sisters. This also makes the character's naivete a bit hard to accept.

Still, it is bracing to see an independent film that bites off a chunk of situation this interesting and challenging, and then lets its audience chew on it until digestion takes place. More often filmmakers bite, chew and ingest all on their own, before spitting it up into something like pre-digested pablum for their audience.

And then there is Margo Martindale, a great character actress and leading lady who is finally coming into her own in terms of having a large audience at last discover her. (She won an Emmy last year for her work on Justified and was honored a few years back with a Chlotrudis Award for her great work as that Colorado postmistress in the Alexander Payne segment of Paris je t'aime. Ms Martindale alone is reason enough to see most any film she's in, and this one is no exception. Scalene makes its appearance on DVD and Blu-ray this coming Tuesday, July 31, from Breaking Glass Pictures -- for sale or rental.

Disney's SECRETARIAT wins by three hairs, thanks to Malkovich, Martindale and Lane

If you are going to make movies in paint-by-numbers fashion (and how long has it been since Disney did much else?), then you'd best use thick, rich paint with which to cover those numbers from view. Movie-wise, that paint can be provided in a variety of ways: with witty, sparkling, sophisticated dialog (I'm having trouble remembering the last time Disney did that); using inventive, original visuals (Julie Taymor is awfully good at this); and maybe, easiest of all, hiring top-notch performers able to create memorable characters out of ordinary descriptive material -- if not practically from thin air.

In casting Diane Lane (above, left) in the leading role in SECRETARIAT, which the studio clearly hopes will be the new decade's Seabiscuit, and then choosing John Malkovich to play the horse trainer, along with crack character actress Margo Martindale (shown above, right) for the role of the smart, righteous, right-hand gal (Thelma Ritter might have essayed it a few decades back), the studio has played its hand quite smartly. These three seasoned pros rarely, if ever, misstep -- and they certainly don't do so here. In fact, they bring welcome intelligence, warmth, humor -- even occasional quirkiness -- to otherwise standard fodder.

Don't get me wrong, there's nothing at all bad about Secretariat. So far as screenplay (Mike Rich, who wrote The Rookie) and direction (Randall Wallace, shown at left, of We Were Soldiers) are concer-ned, this is a serviceable, journey-man effort that will get a main-stream audience where it wants to go in exactly two hours and without undue jostling. Each time a problem comes up -- and there are plenty of these,  involving family, money, horse training, the role of women, even death -- it is handled properly and resolved neatly. Sometimes even, as in the scene of the firing of a sleazy trainer, this is executed with a good deal of bridled passion.

Yet over time, this "neatness" tends to drain suspense (forget about the off-hand, problematic quirks of every-day reality) from the proceedings. This sense of life run through the blender and pre-digested is what often distinguishes (if that's quite the right word) Disney's and other mainstream movies. Even the outcome of the horse races (there are three all-important ones) is rather predictable, though I admit to enjoying the spectacle of thumping hooves, crowds cheering and bright, colorful visuals flashing by.

Ms Lane brings great resolve and strength to her role of daughter and heiress to a down-on-its-luck horse ranch, while Makovich (shown at right) has great fun with his character, a man hired, haltingly, to train the horse that will eventually become known as the film's title. And how lovely to see Ms Martindale in a major role again, instead of in one of her usual small but choice character parts. She has not had a role this important since she played that postal worker on a Paris vacation in Alexander Payne's lovely, final and perfect episode from Paris, Je t'aime, for which she ought to have won (or at least been nominated for) Best Supporting Actress. (If you've never seen that film, do.) Well, maybe she'll get an "Oscar" nod this time around -- if only for the choice moment in which she gifts Ms Lane's character with words to live by during especially trying times. (The movie might have used more of this kind of healthy, humorous cynicism.)

In the very good supporting cast, you'll find lots of familiar faces -- from James Cromwell (as a competitive buyer for the best horses), Dylan Walsh (as Lane's long-suffering and mildly sexist hubby), Dylan Baker (as her a bit too know-it-all brother), Scott Glenn (as her ailing father), Nelsan Ellis (above, left, with Ms Lane as the kindly stable boy who tends the horse) and -- providing a welcome dose of high-energy nastiness -- Nestor Serrano (as the smart-ass owner of a competing stallion). Technical credits, by the way, are first-rate. This is often an extremely beautiful movie to view.

Secretariat, from Walt Disney Pictures, opens this Friday, October 8, just about everywhere.  Click here -- then enter your zip code next to Tickets and Showtimes -- to find a theater near you.