Adrift in Manhattan

This is a beautiful film that unfortunately failed to find the wide audience in theaters it deserved. Directed by Alfred de Villa (Washington Heights), screenplay by Nat Moss based on an original story by Alfredo de Villa, the film stars Heather Graham, Dominic Chianese (The Sopranos’ Uncle Junior) and Victor Rasuk (Raising Victor Vargas) as three New Yorkers whose lives are in crisis and whose paths cross in powerful, meaningful ways. The film, which premiered in competition at the Sundance Film Festival in 2006 and won the Grand Prize at the Indianapolis International Film Festival and an Ensemble Award for Best Cast at the Palm Beach International Film Festival, achieves several noteworthy things: portrait of an artist that feels real in both Dominic Chianese as a painter who is going blind and Victor Rasuk’s amateur photographer who spots Heather Graham’s Rose in a park one day, follows her home and starts photographing her surreptitiously; portrait of a voyeur who is not a creepy pervert; a sex scene that is raw and intimate at the same time; and a look at life in the city that will feel real to anyone who actually rides the 1 train.

Supporting cast members Elizabeth Peña and William Baldwin add considerably to the depth of emotion, in particular Baldwin in a scene as a high school teacher discussing an e.e.cummings poem with his students, a poem, like many by cummings, resonating with meditation on life and death couched in deceptively simple images. Any film that dares to explore an e.e. cummings poem has something to say that is worth hearing and this tender, alive film deserves to be heard and seen.

Speaking of which, the original music by Michael A. Levine is perfectly-suited and some of the most beautiful soundtrack music I’ve heard. Check out his very interesting website where you will see that Levine is a hugely accomplished film music composer: http://www.michaellevinemusic.com.

Adrift in Manhattan is available from Netflix, which is how I viewed it. Kicking myself for not catching it in the theater but it works fine on the small screen. See it and help spread the word. Nice website devoted to the film at: http://www.adriftinmanhattan.net/