{"id":4588,"date":"2012-04-05T14:24:14","date_gmt":"2012-04-05T18:24:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=4588"},"modified":"2012-04-05T14:24:14","modified_gmt":"2012-04-05T18:24:14","slug":"film-girl-in-the-white-coat-the-2011","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=4588","title":{"rendered":"Film: Girl in the White Coat, The (2011)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Return to: <\/strong>Home <\/a>\/\u00a0Blu-ray, DVD, Film Reviews<\/a> \/ <\/em>G<\/a><\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>Film: Very Good\/ DVD Transfer: \u00a0n\/a \/ DVD Extras: n\/a<\/p>\n

Label: n\/a\/ Region: n\/a\u00a0\/\u00a0Released: n\/a<\/p>\n

Genre: Drama<\/p>\n

Synopsis: The restoration of a once beat-up winter coat worsens a vulnerable woman’s obsession with her own foibles, and ultimately endangers her life.<\/p>\n

Special Features: n\/a<\/p>\n

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Review:<\/p>\n

After a lengthy absence from the big screen, Darrell Wasyk, director of the much-lauded H<\/strong> (1990), returns with The Girl in the White Coat<\/strong>, his free-spirited adaptation of Nikolai Gogol\u2019s \u201cThe Overcoat,\u201d in which a man is obsessed with his disintegrating winter coat.<\/p>\n

Stripped down and reconfigured to present day, chilly Montreal, Gogol\u2019s male hero becomes Elise (H<\/strong>\u2019s Pascale Montpetit), a spinster working minimum wage at a paper factory who pours every dime into her father\u2019s healthcare fees at a private seniors clinic. What little she can set aside is earmarked for a beat-up white coat given to her by her father (Julien Poulin) in better days, when the two ran a small country farm before the onslaught of Alzheimer\u2019s.<\/p>\n

Elise is good at one thing – obsessing over simple goals – and her brief attempt to move up in the company for a higher pay grade falls flat, yet she endears herself to manager Cindy \/ her the boss\u2019 lover (Lita Tresierra), and seems poised to start a more sociable life, exist she completely lacks the tools to succeed.<\/p>\n

Her luck is rarely good, as a Christmas bonus both enables the restoration of her coat and curses her to being further obsessed with its new brilliant state. It attracts a hustler (creepy Joey Klein), a stalker, and then disappears in a flash, causing her to go bonkers and reclaim what she thinks is stolen property. When she realizes she\u2019s made a grievous error, guilt seethes within, and ultimately compels her to return the erroneous coat to its rightful owner, which puts her smack in mortal danger.<\/p>\n

Wasyk\u2019s film runs long \u2013 at 112 mins. it has a substantive midsection which focuses on Elise\u2019s foibles with her pushy landlord (Monique Mercure), and the tailor\u2019s wife (Louise Marleau) who extorts extra monies for what she believes is pure charity work \u2013 but Girl<\/strong> has a strange mood which is compelling in spite of scenes designed to mine Montpetit\u2019s performance nuances. Jean-Francois Lord\u2019s cinematography and the chilly winter scenery evoke the original Russian setting largely because Wasyk doesn\u2019t allow for any recognizable structures, logos, or pop culture references, and there\u2019s the oppressive cold which Elise struggles with each morning (and miraculously hasn\u2019t killed her pet canary).<\/p>\n

The sound design is naturalistic with little score, and there are dramatic cheats which further Elise\u2019s paranoia, particularly an extended encounter with a duplicitous hustler, and a brief stalking episode that presages the brutal conclusion to Elise\u2019s effort to return a misappropriated coat in the environs of an industrial wasteland. The finale doesn\u2019t provide any concrete resolution, but it does fit in with the film\u2019s dreamy tone, forcing audiences to hypothesize Elise\u2019s fate as a new morning dawns.<\/p>\n

Wasyk\u2019s film is maybe a bit too unrelenting in the gloom department, but it\u2019s a rather fascinating character study of a blunted, scarred figure who nevertheless manages to rise up each morning, determined to survive.<\/p>\n

Wasyk\u2019s other films include H <\/strong>(1990) and Mustard Bath<\/strong> (1993). Perhaps the best-known adaptations & variations on Gogol\u2019s stories include Danny Kaye\u2019s The Inspector General<\/strong> (1949), Mario Bava\u2019s Black Sunday \/ La maschera del demonio<\/a><\/strong> (1960), Taras Bulba <\/strong>(1962), and Viy <\/a><\/strong>(1967).<\/p>\n

An interview <\/a>with writer \/ director Darrell Wasyk is also available.<\/p>\n

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\u00a9 2012 Mark R. Hasan<\/p>\n

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External References<\/em>:<\/p>\n

IMDB <\/a>— Official Website<\/a><\/p>\n

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Return to<\/strong>:\u00a0Home <\/a>\/\u00a0Blu-ray, DVD, Film Reviews<\/a> <\/em>\/\u00a0G<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Return to: Home \/\u00a0Blu-ray, DVD, Film Reviews \/ G . Film: Very Good\/ DVD Transfer: \u00a0n\/a \/ DVD Extras: n\/a Label: n\/a\/ Region: n\/a\u00a0\/\u00a0Released: n\/a Genre: Drama Synopsis: The restoration of a once beat-up winter coat worsens a vulnerable woman’s obsession with her own foibles, and ultimately endangers her life. Special Features: n\/a . . […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[18],"tags":[1186,1188,1187,1189],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nuyW-1c0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4588"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4588"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4588\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4601,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4588\/revisions\/4601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}