Suspicious River

This is a subject that isn't usually touched upon in film. The B movie feel reflects the dreary depseration of the life of the main character.Parker plays Leila, a woman so bored and disillusioned with life that she actively seeks out abuse from stragers. She begins taking money from men for sex, not for the money, but for the degredation. Leila seems determined to make her life as dark and frightening as she can. Her childhood has traumatized her to the point of emotional numbness.Rennie plays Gary Jenson, initially one of Leila's customers who eventually becomes her "boyfriend" and only reveals his true motivations at the end of the film. He manipulates Leila with alternating violence and empty promises. Leila seems to crave the violent lifestyle Gary is offering.The acting is amazing. Rennie and Parker both give perfect performances. A lot of the story is told through facial expressions instead of dialog which Rennie and Parker both pull off superbly. Suspicious River is a dark glimpse into a frightening and dangerous, yet mysteriously seductive world.

no doubt this is a tough watch. the topic matter controversial and grim. although tough viewing, i enjoy movies like this because it challenges me to look at my views and reflect on life and the lives of others i know. an interesting thing: view this movie and then watch billie piper's "diary of a call girl" to see a totally different perspective view on the same topic. i disagree with a previous reviewer saying this is like a student project and the color is off. this is a well done movie, very professional to the highest degree. if he would have listened to the commentary, she explains the shots and color. if you like dark, grim movies, then this is mandatory viewing. if you offend easily, or think your morals are better than others, go watch disney. for people who take their movies seriously, this is highly recommended.

This movie by Lynne Stopkewich (whose controversial first film was Kissed) shows off her depth as a director. This film deals with the story of a young woman trapped in a small town repeating the self destructive patterns she learned from her mother as well as not appreciating what you've got until you potentially lose it..... Molly Parker shines as the lead and the secondary characters are good enough, just overlook the low budget feel to this movie to enjoy the compelling storytelling. The film was based on a book of the same title by Laura Kasischke and this movie made me want to go out and buy the book. I highly recommend Suspicious River to those who enjoy gritty independent films.

Not what I expected-that was probably a good thing.

This may be spoilery for some; hopefully lack of specific plot details avoids that. I don't see Suspicious River as an "all men are evil" movie. The film doesn't portray all men as evil any more than it portrays all women as prostitutes. What the film portrays is the unconsciously self-destructive behavior of a woman who has so successfully suppressed her past trauma that she interacts with another person, never seeing herself in that person. Basically, this is a very Leila's husband isn't evil, though he's clearly dysfunctional. And there is another not-100%-evil man in the nick of time. The characters' morality is beside the point -- the sympathetic protagonist is obviously pretty messed up in the head (yet you don't even realize how much MORE messed up she is than you thought, until nearly the end of the movie; talk about dissociation!). Her behavior is by no means presented as excusable, merely as compulsive steps towards a dreadful outcome.It isn't that all men are evil, it's that Leila's instincts are all wrong and her compass for love is broken. This compels her towards a whirlpool of experience with an exciting, dangerous man -- one which will either suck her down and drown her, or finally engage her instincts for self-preservation. By that point she's blown past red flag after red flag, deluded by a fantasy that is actually an unwitting recreation of a traumatic past, in unrecognized hopes of changing the terrible outcome. Suspicious River is about how dysfunctional people, rather than correcting their path when they get off-course, continue farther and faster down the wrong path, as if compelled to self-destruct. It explains all the times you wondered "what does he/she see in x?" &/or "how can he/she stay with x after what x has done to him/her?" about a friend's relationship.BUT it does not portray or explain any of this from the perspective of the third party objective onlooker! It is all portrayed and explained (or lack thereof) from the subjective perspective of the self-destructive protagonist, so cut off from her past that she can't see herself in one of the characters she interacts with. This is traumatic dissociation portrayed from the POV of the dissociated person -- not the therapist or psychiatrist or clergyman or friend/family who sees it happening.Leila has no clue why she does what she does or why it's even a bad idea (!) because she doesn't even realize how dissociated she is. So she moves towards a woman's ultimate nightmare, rather than away from it. Suspiciuos portrays a woman's repeated, unconscious choices along a seemingly disjointed path that leads her to an exciting man with whom she has wonderful, terrible chemistry that dovetails perfectly... perfectly awfully.Leila's husband isn't evil, though he is clearly dysfunctional. Neither is the man who helps her, though he is most certainly not good. I see Suspicious River as portraying how the forgotten (or dissociated) past can drive present behavior in compulsive ways the protagonist can't stop doing, to a point where one's hottest chemistry is with the absolute worst people -- and vice versa -- but also where one unwittingly turns away from healthier people and behaviors and towards unhealthy people/behaviors, culminating in the (re)enactment of (self)destruction, seemingly inevitably. It also portrays how someone who seems like they can "take you away from all this" is probably going to put you through hell. The underlying point seems to be that if you don't remember and process the horrors of your past, you'll (wittingly or unwittingly) recreate them in your present. But that is NOT portrayed in a narrative fashion from the typical third-party objective-onlooker perspective most audiences expect. No, it is portrayed visually from the perspective of the compelled protagonist.who doesn't understand what drives his/her behavior, but does it anyway, even as it brings him/her to a confrontation with the , what I didn't know when I first bought Suspicious (partly because of personal revelations since my initial purchase and viewings) that I realize all these years later, is that Suspicious River was written and directed as the episodic, disjointed and inconsistent visual memories of suppressed early trauma, where the dissociation from the actual experience of the trauma is so complete that it looks like it happened to someone else and he/she is only watching it play out.Suspicious River basically documents, from the sufferer's perspective, the depths to which a person can sink (or be dragged) in the present before recalling a hellish past affecting and directing one *now*. In short, at its heart Suspicious River, both the novel and the film, are the portrayal of early trauma's deep and lasting roots reaching into the present and one's adult life years later -- only from the POV of the traumatized person, in all its disjointed, seemingly unconnected/discrete/dissociated experiences.Neither a film or a book written from that perspective can make sense, at least initially, to a viewing/reading audience that hasn't experienced that themselves. There is some heavy handed symbolism in the film, but no more so than in the book -- and it's not really trotted out as symbolism for the audience -- it's Leila's symbolism: she doesn't even realize, let alone understand, that the clues (alarm bells, red flags) thrown out by her seemingly benign fascination with swans who always return to what they know are trying to steer her away from where she winds up going anyway. what she is going through and doing doesn't even make sense to Leila herself. Yet she is compelled to continue, as we (some of us, anyway) are compelled to watch, to descend into a new hell that is merely a variation on/recreation of the old one, having found the "right" man to help her (re)enact it.This is NOT told in a narrative way, for the most part -- in either the film or the novel. For viewers, this can result in a frustrating experience. It requires a level of tolerance and relaxation of your expectations (or desire) for narrative plot progression and closure. The not-quite-narrative progression of the main plot is intercut with a plot set in the past, until they merge in the present -- and you might not even realize that until the end. I wouldn't *fault* director Lynne Stopkewich and writer Laura Kasischke for this (Kasischke's source novel also isn't very, well, novel-like; it's more... impressionistic, if that's a writing style)... I think it was their *intention*. As such, it will appeal most to viewers (or readers) able to immerse themselves in the story despite the non-narrative aspects, suspend their disbelief, and take the ride. The novel is very atmospheric and fairly disjointed -- on purpose. I did not mind the style (but I've read almost all of Burroughs, so I have a high tolerance for seemingly senseless non-narrative writing, lol!). For readers/viewers in that probably narrow niche of people, teasing apart the tangled threads to unravel the mystery will fascinate and compel continued reading/viewing. First you try to figure out *what* is going on, and then you try to figure out *why*.*Maybe that's because I don't watch movies with a single-issue lens or sensitivity the way others do. (For example, my younger sister walked out of Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut because she felt it degraded women by portraying them as unfaithful wives, or prostitutes. My response was, "Oh, yeah, because all the men in the film are paragons of morality." Which kind of