Crush

Crush. Alison Maclean’s piercing first feature, deals with many themes Maclean explored in her prize-winning short, Kitchen Sink. Highlighted by Dian Beebe’s eerie, yet beautiful, photography, the world of Crush is a paradise that reeks of danger.

Crush is a modern fable which explores shining power in relationships. It’s as if Maclean puts an awkward teenage girl, a malevolent femme fatale, a wheelchair-ridden critic, and a once-famous novelist in a boxing ring and waits to see what will happen. Never predictable and always shocking, the story unfolds as fate dictates. Lane, the femme fatale, sets the tragedy in motion by crashing her car and leaving her passenger, Christina, in a coma. Lane falls into the open arms of novelist Colin. Colin’s daughter Angela, at first fascinated by Lane, turns her affections toward Christina when she finds Lane is more interested in her father than their friendship. In a number of fascinating scenes, Angela coaches Christina out of her coma and plants in her a seed of paranoia about Lane’s cruelty.

Emotional manipulation is the motor which powers Maclean’s drama. We are helplessly entangled in the psychoses of the characters as we watch them tear through layers of lies and fabrications to discover their true feelings about themselves and each other. –Sundance Film Festival