Personal Velocity

Released 2002
Stars Kyra Sedgwick, Parker Posey, Fairuza Balk, David Warshofsky, Leo Fitzpatrick, Tim Guinee, Wallace Shawn, Lou Taylor Pucci
Directed by Rebecca Miller

Wandering through a bookstore a few weeks ago, I picked up The Best American Short Stories 2002, and it launched me into a marathon of short story reading: The O. Henry Prize Awards 2002, the collected stories of Alice Munro, Ha Jin, Michael Chabon and William Trevor, and even one evening the works of Mr. Henry himself, long waiting on a distant shelf. I mention this because it was a well-timed preparation for Rebecca Miller's "Personal Velocity," which films three of her own short stories in segments of about half an hour. Miller's characters are Delia (Kyra Sedgwick), Greta (Parker Posey) and Paula (Fairuza Balk). Delia is a battered wife, once famed as a high school slut. Greta edits cookbooks, until a famous novelist asks her to handle his next novel. Paula is running away from her life when she picks up a hitchhiker who is running away from a worse one. All three women have problems with men, and none of them find the solution in this film--which is, I think, a recommendation.

Summary by Roger Ebert

The concept of people having "personal velocities" is interesting, and the three stories show women who either take action to change theirs or find themselves in situations where it's changing. My favorite story was of Greta, the cookbook editor who also consciously edited her life. Such big things were expected from her as the daughter of an Alan Dershowitz magnitude scumbag lawyer, but she left her Ivy league law school unexpectedly and ended up editing cookbooks. Then when she had the chance to edit a critically acclaimed author's novel, she relished in her new station. She had finally realized some of her potential and received the recognition she had always craved and expected, so it was time for her personal velocity to accelerate. Too bad her loving husband was running at a different speed and had to be left behind.

I found the stories were interesting but not emotionally involving, so I didn't enjoy the movie that much. I did like the narrator who helped flesh out the characters by using verbatim text from the short stories. I also really liked how each story flashed back to give backstory, but it seemed like more of an exercies than a movie to me. I just didn't find it involving. --Bill Alward, April 20, 2003