LOVESONG: So-young Kim's friendship/love story opens (and deepens and surprises)

If you're already familiar with the work of South Korean-born/Los Angeles-raised filmmaker So-yong Kim -- In Between Days, Treeless Mountain, For Ellen and now LOVESONG --  you'll probably make a bee line for her newest movie, which bears many of the hallmarks of her earlier work: life unfurling naturally with little to no melodrama, relationships that change and grow organically, and especially some fine work with and around young children. All these are here, plus something else: Lovesong marks Kim's most accessible and nearly-mainstream movie thus far.

The filmmaker, pictured at left, here tackles the tale of two young women, longtime friends -- one of them (Riley Keough) married to a rather unavailable man and mother to a young daughter, the other (Jena Malone) still seemingly sewing her wild oats -- who are so very close that during a long weekend suddenly spent together take that friendship to another level. If this sounds anything like your usual lesbian rom-com-drama, it both is and isn't, for Kim spends much less time on the sex and/or lovemaking than on the feelings these two young women have for each other, as well as on the relationship that has built up between them over the years.

The two have a special place in each other's mind and heart, and Ms Keough (at left on poster, top and above) and Ms Malone (at right on poster, top, and above) bring all this to fine life, with the help of Ms Kim's screenplay (co-written with Bradley Rust Gray), which never over-explicates but allows us to see this relationship via its small moments of closeness -- and distance. When Malone's character flirts with a rodeo cowboy during the road trip, we see Keough's jealousy quietly surface.

Along on that trip is Keough's and her husband's (whom we see only via conversations on the computer) three-year-old daughter, played to near-perfection (as has been true with the various children in all of Kim's movies) by a delightful newcomer Jessie Ok Gray (above. right).

That early trip ends suddenly, and then it's several years later, as Malone is about to be married, and Keough and her daughter (now played by, I am guessing, Gray's older sister, Sky OK Gray, who is also as natural and believable as can be) arrive to join the wedding party. The filmmaker allows her child actors to simply behave and then captures their behavior extremely well.

The passing years seem to have only deepened the feelings of the two women, yet that wedding proceeds as planned, if in fits and starts. Lovesong actually grows and deepens as it moves along, even though the relationship between the two women is so halting and unsure. It's there and it's strong, despite all else.

Is it societal control that is forcing the Malone character toward heterosexuality over homosexuality? Clearly, she does have an attraction toward the opposite sex, yet that shown to her female friend seems strongest of all. Ever the character's mother (the usual nice job from Rosanna Arquette) questions her daughter's choice here, and what the poor groom (smartly and charmingly profiled by Ryan Eggold, below with Ms Malone), knows about all this is also unclear.

Ms Kim refuses to tie up loose ends (or almost any ends) yet this does not, finally, matter much. So well and so strongly has she captured the central relationship, despite much that we in the audience still do not know, that the movie manages to be both deeply sad and deeply joyful, as our two characters move on with their respective lives.

Lovesong is a most unusual film, but it's one that perceptive, demanding audiences should find worthwhile.

The movie -- from Strand Releasing and running just 84 minutes -- opens tomorrow, Friday, February 17, in New York City at the City Cinemas' Village East and in Los Angeles on March 3 at AMC's Sundance Sunset Cinema and Laemmle's Playhouse 7. To view all currently scheduled playdates and theaters in some 15 cities across the country, click here and then click on Screenings on the task bar midway down your screen.

Paul Dano delights in So Yong Kim's problematic divorce drama, FOR ELLEN

Those of us who enjoy seeing the work of young actor Paul Dano (L.I.E., Little Miss Sunshine, There Will Be Blood, The Extra Man and the current Ruby Sparks -- to name just five of his more than 30 appearances over the past 14 years) will not want to miss his latest little-independent-movie (he makes a lot of these), FOR ELLEN. Another good reason to see the film is its writer/director/
producer/editor So Yong Kim, who earlier gave us the pretty good In Between Days and the very good Treeless Mountain. (There's a third reason, too -- a very young one -- and we'll get to her further below.)

Ms Kim (shown at left), born in Korea but raised in Los Angeles, brings her special combination of nature/nurture to interesting affect in all her work -- in which children of various ages, teens and younger, play an important part.

Here, the child is a product of separated parents who are about to finalize their divorce, the father of whom (Joby Taylor, played by Mr. Dano, below) has barely laid eyes on his child since her birth. A moderately successful rock musician who proves to be mostly a jerk, Joby has driven all day and overnight to be at the signing of the divorce papers, in order to... what? He himself barely knows (nor do we), but it has something to do with seeing, and spending some time with, that child.

We get glimpses of the angry wife and mother, Claire (Margarita Levieva), who wants nothing more to do with Joby -- and you really can't blame her. But we spend so little time with Claire that her character barely exists, except as a roadblock to Joby's current needs and/or desires.

We spend more time with Joby's small-time lawyer (a quiet, funny and oddly charming performance from Jon Heder, above), who invites Joby home to partake in his mom's lasagna dinner.

Everything here is building up to Joby's possible reunion with his daughter -- the "Ellen" of the title -- brought to quite special life by the young actress Shaylena Mandigo (above). Ms. Kim has proven herself very good director of kids (or various ages), and this time she scores once again. Ms Mandigo all but steals the movie out from under Dano. But the older actor gets the cream of the scenes and so hold his own quite well.

I don't recall seeing Dano in a role anything like this one, in which he gets the chance to make us lose all patience with him and then, slowly, wins us back. The actor gives a rich, full performance, letting it all hang out -- from the ugly to the irresponsible to the funny and moving. Unfortunately, all the manipulation created to allow Joby and his daughter to finally get together is what make the movie defy credibility.

Granted we don't know much about wife/mother Claire, but what we do know would indicate that she would never -- given what she and we already have witnessed regarding Joby's crazy behavior -- allow this guy to be alone with his daughter, unaccompanied by any other adult. How Joby blackmails his way into this situation, also defies logic, law, and humanity's known penchant for hypocrisy.

Of course without all this, the meeting between father and daughter would never happen and the movie would not exist. But in any kind of realistic drama, which For Ellen stakes a claim to being, the filmmaker ought to have found some better way to finess this. While TrustMovies can easily go with some manipulation and coincidence in a genre movie, such as yesterday's horror/thriller, Serving Up Richard, in any legitimate drama, this is not, nor should it be, acceptable.

While this mars the movie pretty badly -- it's a deal-breaker, in fact -- it does not detract from Dano's fine work nor that of the rest of the cast. And Ms Kim shows herself a master of creating an upstate New York winter in lovely widescreen that chills to the bone. (This looks rather wonderful, actually, as our planet warms its way into extinction.)

For Ellen, from Tribeca Film and running 87 minutes, opens theatrically this Wednesday, September 5, in New York City at Film Forum, and will play a few other cities in the weeks to come. Click here and scroll down to see exactly which. On September 19, it will be available nationwide via VOD.