Scottish supermarket shelf-filler Morvern Callar (Samantha Morton) uses her boyfriend’s inheritance after his suicide to escape from her boring life. Emotionally intense road movie by the director of the prize-winning Ratcatcher.
Making a film version of the cult novel Morvern Callar (written in the first person singular) needed a director with guts and vision. Lynne Ramsay stayed close to the book and made a very intense road movie with traces of black comedy and psychological horror. When the 21-year-old Morvern Callar (another impressive role by Samantha Morton) wakes up on Christmas Day, she finds her boyfriend with his wrists slashed on the kitchen floor. In this oppressive opening scene, the only sound is the crackling of the Christmas tree lights. Her boyfriend leaves Morvern a Walkman with a cassette compilation, a well-padded bank account and a book he wrote on a floppy disk – with an address list of publishers. Morvern grasps her opportunity, almost without emotion. To flee her dead-end existence in the Scottish town of Oban and her job filling supermarket shelves, she sends the book under her own name to the publishers. In the meantime, the action moves from the grey skies of Scotland to Spain, where Morvern has a wild holiday full of sex and drugs with her best friend Lanna. The powerful soundtrack, with music by the Velvet Underground among others, comes from her boyfriend’s Walkman that Morvern listens to throughout. –IFFR
Lynne Ramsay (born 5 December 1969) is an award-winning Scottish film director, best known for the feature films Ratcatcher and Morvern Callar.
Ramsay won the 1996 Cannes Prix de Jury for her graduation film, the short “Small Deaths”. Her second short film, “Kill the Day”, won the Clemont Ferrand Prix du Jury; her third, “Gasman”, won her another Cannes Prix du Jury in addition to a Scottish BAFTA for Best Short Film.
Ratcatcher (1999), Ramsay’s debut feature, won critical acclaim and numerous awards. It was screened at the 1999 Cannes Film Festival and opened the Edinburgh International Film Festival, winning her the Guardian New Directors prize. She also won the Carl Foreman Award for Newcomer in British Film at the 2000 BAFTA Awards, the Sutherland Trophy at the London Film Festival and the Silver Hugo for Best Director at the Chicago International Film Festival.
Morvern Callar (2002) won Samantha Morton the British Independent… read more
Lynne Ramsay’s third feature is a mishmash of soiled diapers, leaden musical cues and underlined soul-sickness,
after her highly acclaimed debut feature, ratcatcher, lynne ramsay needed 3 years to make another film. that film turned out to be morvern callar. a story about a girl’s journey at finding the best… read review