Suzanne

I had heard so many wonderful things about Suzanne and so I went into it with great expectations only to have them dashed.

Suzanne is less of a movie than a series of vignettes. I don't have a problem with unstructured or loosely structured movies, but with Suzanne the movie covers such a broad amount of time (over 20 years) and is so short (90 or so minutes) that it feels jolting to watch as children bloom into adults abruptly with no transitions between scenes.

Loosely, the film follows the Merevsky family which consists of a father and two daughters after their mother dies. The family is working class, and the father works as a truck driver with long absences, but they are close knit. Suzanne is the eldest and she falls pregnant with a son that she raises as a single mother with her family. Sometime later she falls in love with a low-level drug dealer and things go south for the two of them as they can't keep away from one another, nor can they find a more lucrative means of employment.

The acting is very good and director Quillévéré has a beautiful eye for making the movie feel cinematic despite the very basic subject matter, but again, the plot is so scattered and he vignettes go by so quickly it's hard to care.

A missed opportunity, especially with so much talent behind and in front of the camera.