It’s the winner of a Grand Jury Prize from the Sundance Film Festival, but there’s nothing grand about “Forty Shades of Blue.” This movie is as small and sneaky as a faintly heard blues melody in the night air.
The story is set in Memphis, one of the great music cities, where a cantankerous, aging songwriter/producer/musician receives a lifetime achievement award. Alan James (Rip Torn) has a career that stretches back to the birth of rock ‘n’ roll, and he knows his place of prestige. Knows it so well that he can throw tantrums and enjoy one-night flings under the nose of his patient companion.
This ladyfriend is Laura (Dina Korzun), a Russian woman Alan met in Moscow during a tour. She has given him a three-year-old son and a modicum of organization in his life – plus the good looks of a willowy, strawberry-blond trophy wife.
She’s our point-of-view in the movie. Laura drifts through her life in Memphis, separated from her husband by his unpredictable behavior and separated from the world by her uncertain command of English and American customs.
A crisis arrives in the form of Alan’s older son Michael (Darren Burrows), a would-be writer and embittered teacher. Alan’s been a lousy father to Michael, and Michael doesn’t let him forget it. His own marriage is falling apart, and Michael and Laura can’t help but be intrigued by each other.
This has the sound of a conventional melodrama – the son sleeping with the father’s girlfriend. But “Forty Shades” is not conventional in any way. The movie floats along like a daydream inside Laura’s head, losing its momentum, pausing for asides and glances. And music.
The soundtrack is filled with R&B and country songs that bespeak Memphis. Without looking like a travelogue, the film really feels rooted in Memphis; it even has notorious Elvis crony Red West in a recurring role.
“Forty Shades” makes a fascinating comparison to another Memphis music film that came out this year, “Hustle &Flow.” That movie went for the dynamic propulsion of Crunk music, while this one goes sad and slow.
Rip Torn gives a marvelous performance, somehow conveying childlike helplessness and affection along with the selfishness. The character could be a descendent of a country singer Torn played in the 1970s in the movie “Payday.”
Credit, too, to Dina Korzun and Darren Burrows (he was the geeky teenager on “Northern Exposure,” now reborn as a grave, haunted grown-up).
Director (and Memphis native) Ira Sachs seems inspired by the movies of Robert Altman; there’s an improvised feeling to some scenes in this one. It’s a film that will divide people – I have no doubt some with find it boring – but its sleepy rhythm caught me up, and the music kills.
RIGHT: Rip Torn and Dina Korzun in “Forty Shades of Blue.”
BELOW: Darren Burrows.
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