Normal

So I just finished watching "Normal" and have been letting the film just sort of mull around in my head. I liked it, a lot, so I'm trying my best to let it settle in. It takes very few risks, and I like it for that, believe it or not it works better following plot points Ive seen in other films than trying to forge a new path and most likely failing. There are of course the rare gems that do something new, and do something incredible (Pi, Memento, Reservoir Dogs, etc.) but I think for the most part movies that try and do something new have to push the limits and this alienates most of the audience. Those movies are usually the ones I gravitate towards because I don't want to watch the same movie over and over again with new actors.

With that said the story is very familiar, we follow several people in the after math of a car crash that killed a teen that everyone loved. Something I really loved that they did was the only way you ever see the mysterious teen is through two photographs, one being the newspaper article that the man who ran his car into the teens cant seem to throw away, and the other being the mothers photograph of her and her two sons, which we only see momentarily. Other than those two examples we know almost nothing about this person who the whole narrative centers itself on.

Another thing they did that was different and made it more enjoyable is that the crash didn't just happen, its been two years, they have just begun to move on, but are forever reminded of how life used to be. Like a scar that has healed, but still hurts our characters keep rubbing them as the familiar sting of an old would returns. We sympathize with all of them, although it gets hard to with the mother, played very well by Carrie Anne Moss. She had a hard role, of course you feel for her, but she is like an anchor on her family, pulling them down with her, and drowning their hopes of living a normal life. You start to resent her ability to do and say as she pleases with the excuse of mourning.

Most of the story surprisingly doesn't revolve around the teens death though, most of it is as they go on with their lives they are reminded that they are not the people they were before, and the guilt or regret of that is killing them, and making them do bad things. That's why I would say the movie is more about the mistakes we make, how we have to live with them, and how they change us. In this way it makes it different than other movies about people living with a terrible thing. Its the terrible thing that is leading them to do these other terrible things which is what we are focusing on.

The acting was great all around, I was able to recognize a few of the actors, but for the most part I was able to just accept them as these people and run with it. With Moss she had a tough role to play, one that you want to feel for her but the character makes it hard, and she does great with the role, she shows that she is more than just Trinity.

The way its shot isn't the usual gritty look that these type of movies go with, but its certainly not clean either. It is a healthy middle ground, it looks like real life. Its a Canadian movie so maybe that's why I had never heard of it till I found it on Netflix, even though it just came out in 2007. It should have gotten at least some press because it was a more than decent drama, and I think its because it never strays into melodrama. Nothing to me seemed over the top with it, in that way the roles might be considered underplayed, but I would say the opposite, they found the core of the emotions that would run these people and they played it like that instead of people howling and yelling to the heavens "Why me, curse the day he was born" sort of stuff. Certainly worth a look if you like indie dramas. 7/10 stars.