Written and directed by Rebecca Miller, who adapted the screenplay from her own book of short stories, Personal Velocity is deeply intelligent, beautifully realised portrait of three women's lives and what they must do to escape the situations and people - sometimes themselves - who have restricted their freedom. In the first segment Delia (Sedgwick) is a battered wife, who reaches breaking point and decides to flee from her vicious husband. The second sees Greta (Parker) playing a books editor who gets the assignment of her life with a world famous young novelist. The job forces her to take a cold look at her own life with her deeply loving but unambitious husband. In the final act, Paula (Fairuza Balk) is a wild-eyed delinquent who has gotten her life in some sort of order. Running from a freak accident, she meets an abused boy and tries to help him. In doing so, she's forced to face her own uncertain future.
Filmed on digital video which gives the film an almost unworldly look, Personal Velocity is a poignant film with three extremely well written characters, whom hold a mirror up to themselves and gaze into the abyss of the choices they've made and the people they've become. Refreshingly, Miller doesn't attempt to tie the strands into one unsatisfying whole, merely letting us know that the characters all live in the same state at the same time. Inevitably, some will point to the second story, where Greta is having problems living up to her great father's expectations, as being autobiographical. (Miller is the daughter of the playwright Arthur Miller.) Yet to be so reductive would be doing this intimate, deeply personal movie a severe disservice. Go and see.
