david60

This is my impression of "Bringing Rain" (BR), not a review This is just me rambling on about a movie I saw and which part of the proverbial elephant I happen to be feeling.

For what it's worth I enjoyed the film very much. Perhaps it would be helpful if I list some movies I also enjoyed in the recent past which I emotionally categorize as being "similar" in some way. These film names are also links to their official movie sites.

• Swimming
• Welcome to the Dollhouse
• Igby Goes Down
• Ghost World

What do I think these movies have in common? They are character driven. A synopsis of the plot is only a few sentences and doesn't really capture much of the essence of the movie. Change happens but there's not a neatly resolved ending. There are mysteries, when the film's over not everything that happened is rationally understandable. People suffer in these films and I feel empathy and compassion for them. They deal with the struggle to "grow up", a concept I seem destined never to master. I compare BR to these films but BR is starker than any of them, like it's been put in a crucible to burn away unessential elements. Another similarity between these films is that you're left thinking and wondering about them long after they're over.

Adrian Grenier as Clay Askins and Niesha Butler as Neisha Sanders are the nominal leads of BR but this is a true ensemble work where all the main characters have significant roles and screen time. The kids in the boarding school are isolated and have little contact with anyone on the outside. All that would constitute real action in a mainstream movie happens in the first minute of the film. From that point on everyone is in a kind of stasis, the interaction between the characters is complex and subtle but the entire social system is locked in a stable pattern. The pattern may be stable but it's not happy. With the system isolated change can only come from perturbations from within. This is what happens. My interpretation of the title "Bringing Rain" is not a build up to a climatic storm; it's rain after a long draught bringing change and growth. The movie ends before we see exactly what the change will be, but we can see the stasis has been broken.

I'm unqualified to evaluate the performance of the actors. All that I can say is it's been two weeks since I saw the film; although I needed help remembering some of their character names I can still remember the characters as real personalities. I didn't see the acting; I just saw the characters. As for Larisa's performance, I've been "obsessed" with "Larisa Oleynik" for seven years now and know as much about her public persona as anyone. When I watched BR I didn't see her, I saw Ori Swords. In fact every character Larisa plays seems different and unique.