Video Americain

Review

While this early Leigh film suffers from a small budget and reduced production values, it still evidences the director's uncanny ability to sketch indelible portraits with minimal brush strokes and often with no exposition. Sylvia (Raitt) copes with caring for her mentally challenged sister (Stephenson) and a mind-numbing job as secretary in a barren urban environment. Her relationship with a schoolteacher (Allen) is devoid of any true communication -- they share stilted conversation but no connection. The appearance of a guitar-playing lodger in the garage offers a short-lived flash of spontaneity in the sisters' treadmill lives. The characters drift sonambulistically in shared isolation, shared oppression, shared repression.