Deeply (2001) from Johnny Web (Uncle Scoopy; Greg Wroblewski)

This is a fable, fairy-tale, legend thing intended to dazzle 13 year old girls. (Rated 7.8 by females at IMDb). It has all the requisite elements of sappy teen-girl movies:  forlorn lovers, crusty pipe-smokin' old salts, beautiful pipe-smokin' young salts, haunted flute music, plenty of folk songs where they sing "eye" instead of  "ee" (Missour-eye, earl-eye in the morning), small boats in storms at sea, and at least one member of the Redgrave family.
As it begins, a young girl recovering from the death of her lover is brought by her mother from her father's home in Berlin to a wind-swept island with only 10 buildings on it, or, as Canadians like to call it, "the big city". 

The young girl seems to resent her mother for summoning her to this place, and apparently doesn't realize that she is nearly 30 years old, and doesn't have to go to windswept islands at her parents' behest. (The part is played by Julia Brendler, aged 26) 

NUDITY REPORT
Julia Brendler did a wet s-shirt scene and a topless scene. The topless scene, however, was from the side-rear and in darkness.
And what a perfect place to send someone to recover from the pain of sudden isolation - an island with 20 inhabitants and plenty of howling wind. Just the place where a young gal can lose herself in companionship, the gaiety of the nightlife and the sparkle of warm conversation. Except that everyone is out fishin', so she has to visit a crusty old member of the Redgrave family, a writer who lives on the island in order to achieve the solitude necessary to concentrate on writing. Brendler says "watcha writin' about, meine dame?", and Lynn Redgrave says that it's too long a story to relate. Oh, yeah, like the girl has so much else to do on an island with 10 buildings. So Redgrave proceeds to relate some muddled tale about an ancient Viking curse which causes the fish to disappear every fifty years until a young woman can solve the mystery, or some such crap.

The ancient Vikings placed this curse a milennium ago, which seems kind of odd. Who did they think they were cursing? The lack of fish wouldn't have mattered at the time, because nobody was living there. It is good to know that those ancient Vikings always had an eye on future generations. I guess they were cursing the island on spec. They must have been very wise, indeed, because if I had seen that island in the year 1000, I never would have pictured it as the Las Vegas of the future.

DVD info from Amazon.

  • full screen

  • no major features
The film appears to have one real strength, but the DVD ruined it. The film looks to be beautifully photographed. I said "looks to be" and "appears to" because the DVD has a cheesy pan 'n scan version which loses the scope of the widescreen presentation. Sometimes even the sides of people's faces are cut off. This movie was nominated for a Genie (Canadian Oscar) for Cinematography, so I have to believe it looked pretty good before they started pannin' and scannin'. 

Did I mention that Kirsten Dunst is Silly in this movie?

 

No I didn't make a typo with that capital S. 

 

Look it up in IMDb, and you'll see what I mean.

The Critics Vote

  • no major reviews online

  • nominated for three Genie awards; Art Direction, Cinematography, Editing

The People Vote ...

  • With their votes ... IMDB summary: IMDb voters score it 7.0, Apollo users 50/100 
IMDb guideline: 7.5 usually indicates a level of excellence, about like three and a half stars from the critics. 6.0 usually indicates lukewarm watchability, about like two and a half stars from the critics. The fives are generally not worthwhile unless they are really your kind of material, about like two stars from the critics. Films under five are generally awful even if you like that kind of film, equivalent to about one and a half stars from the critics or less, depending on just how far below five the rating is.

My own guideline: A means the movie is so good it will appeal to you even if you hate the genre. B means the movie is not good enough to win you over if you hate the genre, but is good enough to do so if you have an open mind about this type of film. C means it will only appeal to genre addicts, and has no crossover appeal. D means you'll hate it even if you like the genre. E means that you'll hate it even if you love the genre. F means that the film is not only unappealing across-the-board, but technically inept as well.

Based on this description, this film is a C. Well-filmed, implausible, overwrought story aimed at a highly targeted audience. If you are over 20 and/or vagina-impaired, it may not be your cup of tea.

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