The plight of poor, marginalized Americans is of increasing concern to filmmakers and audiences these days as evidenced by the release of a trio of well-received films on the subject in 2008: Frozen River; Wendy and Lucy; and Ballast. All three are timely and stark endeavors, but each has its own merits. Ballast is a bit more adventurous than the others, plunging us directly into its neorealist reality. I felt the characters’ pain much more deeply and my stomach was in bigger knots which made for an intimate but not entirely pleasant experience. This is a complement rather than a complaint. There’s no laughter, no soundtrack, and no escape. The barren rural Mississippi scenes made me shiver, and the portrayals of grief and despair rattled me: a young boy trying to be a man in a world he barely understands; a mother bitter and full of blame against the absent father of her son; a twin suffering the loss of his brother; a family’s attempt to come together after a long and protracted estrangement. I felt a great deal of compassion for these characters, each of whom is doing the absolute best s/he can and still coming up short in life. These are people who are drowning, not waving, but if there is one moral I suppose it’s that there is strength in numbers. Perhaps there’s a little hope for the hopeless. P.S. I like the way the film ends. 3.5 stars.