# Limbo (1999)

### reviewed by
David Sunga

    LIMBO (1999)

    Rating: 3 stars (out of 4.0)
    ********************************
    Key to rating system:
    2.0 stars - Debatable
    2.5 stars - Some people may like it
    3.0 stars - I liked it
    3.5 stars - I am biased in favor of the movie
    4.0 stars - I felt the movie's impact personally or it stood out
    *********************************
    A Movie Review by David Sunga

    Directed by: John Sayles

    Written by: John Sayles

Starring: Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, David Strathairn, and Vanessa Martinez

Synopsis: Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio is lounge singer Donna De Angelo. Vanessa Martinez is Donna's teenage daughter Noelle. David Strathairn plays Joe Gastineau, a handyman who was once a fisherman. They all live in a seaside town in Alaska, and they all have issues. Donna has survived a string of failed relationships and her career as a singer hasn't panned out. Noelle is profoundly unhappy. Joe feels responsible for a boating accident years ago. The three of them take a boat ride up the Alaskan coast and end up stranded together on an inhospitable, deserted island.

Opinion: Some movies are all about action and effects. A beautiful, high-maintenance cast of stereotypical characters goes through a prefab movie formula to entertain us with big budget bangs and booms and give us manufactured warm and fuzzy feelings. Other, smaller budget movies are more like the small theater experience. The plot allows the audience to develop empathy with an ensemble of less than perfect characters. Then the characters are put in a tight situation or place and all their issues come out. A lesson is learned or an aspect highlighted.

LIMBO is more like the latter than the former. I'd like to see a theater version of it someday. Characters in LIMBO behave the way real people might act. They're not superheroic. They're not overly dramatic, overly successful, stereotypical, or even glamorous. Everyone stays in character even when life throws a bunch of dangerous and unexpected curve balls. And there's no formula to this movie.

To tell the truth, the editing seems a little choppy in the last part, and the movie's finale is a complete surprise. But it's good that way. In life some of the most profound events, friendships, or forks in the road occur in an unannounced way, sometimes not even recognized or noticed till years later. LIMBO is sort of like that. Characters make life-changing decisions and never even realize that they are making decisions. That's the beauty of this movie.

    Reviewed by David Sunga
    June 7, 1999

Copyright © 1999 by David Sunga This review and others like it can be found at THE CRITIC ZOO: http://www.criticzoo.com email: zookeeper@criticzoo.com

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