HOLLOW REED Movie Review

Believe Me

When the nine-year-old son of a divorced couple begins to show signs of physical abuse, the boy's physician father (Martin Donovan)—now openly gay—finds himself unable to prove his suspicion that his ex-wife's new lover is the cause. Hollow Reed looks for all the world like a made-for-cable movie during its first ten minutes or so, but soon its texture begins to appear, and the plot takes you in directions you don't see coming. Martin Donovan, who for years was the effectively blank protagonist of Hal Hartley's existential downtown comedies, displays a range I was both surprised and impressed by. It's an issue picture about battered children, yes, but it's more than that; it's also about how well-meaning, intelligent people manage to sheath themselves with denial despite—perhaps because of—unbearably ugly realities that they know to be true. Most importantly, Hollow Reed is engaging enough to make us care about the issues at its center.

NEXT STOP … Amateur, Flirt, Patty Hearst

1995 105m/C GB Martin Donovan, Joely Richardson, Ian Hart, Jason Flemyng, Sam Bould; D: Angela Pope; W: Paula Milne; C: Remi Adefarasin; M: Anne Dudley. VHS, Closed Caption COL