Originally Published: 2003-06-01

Dark and weird, Lynne Ramsay's Movern Callar contains an admirable and hypnotic performance by Samantha Morton in the title role. Ultimately, however, the story is plotless and the picture meanders into self-indulgence.
At 21, Movern (Morton) lives in a small port on the west coast of Scotland where she works in a supermarket convinced that you have to get by in life with what you have and accept what happens to you. On Christmas day she finds her boyfriend lying stone dead on the tile floor of the kitchen. He killed himself after leaving her a message on the computer, his credit card, and a floppy disk with the unpublished novel he'd just finished. Making the odd decision to not tell anyone, and pretending to be the author of the book, our heroine takes a long-needed vacation in Spain with a pal (Kathleen McDermott).
Based on Alan Warner's novel of the same name, Movern Callar is heartless in its emotional involvement, and considering nothing really happens in conventional terms, the viewer is irrevocably distanced. If not for Morton's exceptional acting, the film is barely worth noticing.

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