By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4.4
Director: Bryan Wizemann
Starring: Adina Porter | David Conrad | Dylan Baker | Lauren Ambrose | Penelope Ann Miller
Original language title: Think of Me
Country: united_states
Year: 2012
Running time: 103
IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1198199/
Thom says: “It’s always nice to see ‘Six Feet Under’ alumnus Ambrose back on the boards and she fits her role here like a glove. Here she plays a down-on-her-luck single mother (Angela) with a precocious young daughter living in Las Vegas. She does indeed work at some rather sleazy telephone sales job and her boss offers her in some questionable deal where she can possibly come out from under a mountain of debts that are plaguing her. While certainly not a model mom she does love her daughter (Sunny) but being frazzled she occasionally takes her antagonism out on Sunny with verbal abuse. To make matters worse Sunny appears to have dyslexia. At work she befriends an understanding, friendly guy (a subdued Baker) who might have a hidden agenda. As things go from bad to worse for Angela she is forced to make desperate decisions involving her daughter’s welfare and future. This simple, uncluttered film is straightforward and honest although rather colorless. 3.5 cats”
Jason says: “Lauren Ambrose has been building a solid body of work since her teens, mostly as part of quality ensembles. Here she’s got a lead role, and while it’s not likely to be the one that makes her a household name – the movie’s too small and the character’s not an obvious heroine – it certainly doesn’t bring her average down. And though she’s in every scene, she’s far from alone in delivering the goods here.
“She plays Angela, a single mother in the less flashy part of Las Vegas whose call-center job just barely makes ends meet. Her daughter Sunny (Audrey Scott) is just about to turn eight and is falling behind the other students in her class with a possible reading disability. At work, she commiserates with Max (Dylan Baker), the guy in the next cube, and learns of an investment opportunity from her boss (David Conrad). It’s not the kind that sets one up for life but it would give her a bit of a cushion. Of course, she’s not the type for whom this sort of thing goes smoothly.
“Yes, Angela is more than a bit of a screw-up, but she’s a walking disaster as the movie begins rather than a crashing one, and not completely unsympathetic. We’re not given much of a sense of what her circumstances were like when Sunny was born, but somehow she’s managed to get this far without everything falling apart. Writer Bryan Wizemann presents her as someone who has made grudging, minimal concessions to being a responsible adult and parent – she knows she has to have a job, but also blows it off very easily when she doesn’t feel like working. She’s dressed like someone who can afford to be a lot more carefree and provocative, for that matter.
“Considering all that, Ambrose could have played Angela as just a girl with serious arrested development, and while that’s a lot of her performance, she seldom comes across as childish or comically immature. Instead, she makes Angela someone who is impulsive in a desperate way; she derives no joy or bliss from living in the moment but doesn’t have a particularly strong grasp on the future as a concept. She also does a great job of showing how pressure and basic exhaustion wear on Angela as the movie goes on just by how quick she is to snap at another character or how she looks around when she has to make a decision; she doesn’t need exaggerated make-up or disheveled hair as an overt signal of her fatigue. And it’s not a completely negative portrayal; the movie wouldn’t work if we couldn’t see that there is a real understanding of her responsibilities that balances Angela’s selfishness, or that she really loved her daughter.
“Audrey Scott is just right in the scenes she plays opposite Ambrose. Instead of having Scott do spunky or bratty or wise, there’s something almost alien about Sunny as seen through Angela’s eyes – Sunny’s not communicative or overtly unhappy, but she wants things and isn’t really able to handle things getting worse. Sunny and Angela don’t really understand each other but also clearly can’t imagine the world without one another, and there’s real chemistry between Ambrose and Scott, whether warming or volatile. There’s also a fine performance by Dylan Baker, who gives even Max’s most friendly moments a cynical edge.
“That all serves Wizemann’s story, which is really quite well-told. The plot arises very organically from a couple early comments from Max, and Wizemann deliberately avoids spelling anything out, and doing that while maintaining Angela’s point of view lets the audience maintain the impression that either she’s getting swept up in something or working some pretty strong denial and/or rationalization. Some of the foreshadowing is elegant despite being obvious, and he’s able to work one pivotal event so that afterward I don’t know whether it’s an example of Angela’s suspect judgment or someone moving the story along but think it works either way. A large chunk of the movie’s second half takes place in Angela’s car, which both serves as her reflection and emphasizes just how rootless and lacking resources she feels.
“Wizemann’s story is the sort of small and bleak one that can afford to be because it’s tight and has something potentially positive at its center. That’s buried deep, though, maybe too deep to be excavated. 4.75 cats
“Seen 28 April 2012 in Somerville Theatre #5 (Independent Film Festival Boston 2012, digital)”
Chris says: “Best known from the HBO series ‘Six Feet Under’, Lauren Ambrose has taken a fittingly unconventional career path since that show ended in 2005. Rather than parlay her fame into high-profile studio pictures, she’s stayed indie and highbrow, divvying up most of her time between New York stage productions and supporting roles in small films. THINK OF ME (like the similarly scaled, little-seen STARTING OUT IN THE EVENING) features one of Ambrose’s rare turns as a lead and it’s an ideal vehicle for her talent.
“She plays Angela, a single Las Vegas mother struggling to provide a decent life for her young daughter, Sunny. We know little about their past, only that Sunny’s father left them some time ago and now has next-to-zero involvement in their lives. Angela works a menial telemarketing job, although it’s not enough to pay all the bills. She’s always looking for extra cash—often ill-advisedly, for in the first scene she picks up a guy at a strip club, takes him home, sleeps with him and then, in the morning, asks him to spare some dough. At that moment, Sunny walks in on them and appears more annoyed than shocked, as if this isn’t the first time this has happened.
“What makes THINK OF ME (retitled ABOUT SUNNY) difficult to watch is not so much Angela and Sunny’s grim, lower-middle-class surroundings but Angela’s often misguided attempts to deal with their situation. While it’s a stretch to call her an unfit parent, she’s not always a responsible one. Her occasional lapses in judgment (like leaving Sunny on her own while she takes a graveyard-shift second job) speak volumes about her impulsive character—she’ll do anything to reach a goal without considering every last detail or potential consequence. However, she obviously loves and cares for Sunny. Writer/director Bryan Wizemann stresses the genuineness of this mother-daughter bond over any of Angela’s flaws, especially in the film’s wrenching conclusion which eventually ekes some grace out of a series of dire straits Angela must endure and try to overcome.
“Although pretty bleak, THINK OF ME is not so much a downer as it is an earnest attempt to give its viewers an alternative to the mindless escapism often inherent in inspirational tales of ordinary folk just trying to get by (it nearly feels like a less austere Dardenne Brothers film). There may be little hope of escape for Angela and Sunny, but at least their world reflects something that’s familiar to and may resonate with many working-class single mothers—a significant demographic all-too-rare in cinema today. Although she has good support from Audrey P. Scott (very natural as Sunny) and Dylan Baker as a sympathetic (if somewhat creepy—thank you, HAPPINESS for altering Baker forever) co-worker, it’s Ambrose’s film. Her Angela is every bit as intricately layered and deeply felt as her Claire was on ‘Six Feet Under. It’s an occasionally unflattering but remarkably honest
performance—a good fit for a film that pulls few punches. 5 cats
“(This film screened at the 2012 Independent Film Festival of Boston)”