The best filmgoing experiences i’ve had came in the guise of a surprise. I like lowering expectations, ignoring hype and going with the flow. Sometimes it’s hard, but sometimes it’s just necessary. Brokeback Mountain had so much hype surrounding it, but the Thin Man and Morvern Callar were films I never heard of until I watched them. All three films, nonetheless, are now at the top of my favorite film list because they knocked me over with feathers, left me smiling from ear to ear, conjure feelings of complete delight and satisfaction. It’s rare that a film, or anything in life really, can do this. When it does, I cherish it.

Morvern Callar is sincerely one of the most amazing, impressing and simple but complex films I have ever seen. It’s a character study as affecting as Anthony Hopkin’s portrayal of Stevens the ideal butler in 1930s Britiain in Remains of the Day. Samantha Morton’s performance could not have been better! It’s so nuanced, touching, disturbing and endearing. I couldn’t imagine any other actress playing Morvern. Lynne Ramsay’s directing was also superb. Hypnotic, simple and intimate.

Morvern Callar is about a young twenty-something woman who comes home to discover her boyfriend’s committed suicide, submits his manuscript for a novel to a publishing house as her own, and goes on vacation with her best friend Lanna (who she doesn’t tell about the suicide) to Spain using the money he left her for his funeral. Morvern’s motivations for her decisions seem as elusive as her boyfriend’s suicide. But, by the end of the movie, you do begin to see the whole picture. You begin to understand her motivations. You begin to see Morvern’s transformation brought about by her desire to be more than a supermarket clerk in a small Scottish town and her grief and confusion from her boyfriend’s suicide in her new found freedom from the release of both constraints afforded to her by the pending publication of the novel.

The most moving scene of the film is the first. The very first shot is a close up of Morvern lying on a floor. Soon we see the body of her dead boyfriend sprawled across both the kitchen and living room floor with blood trailing from the kitchen floor to his slit wrists while the Christmas tree lights blink on and off in a corner. It’s a sad and disturbing image. There’s no music, no noise, just silence. Morvern lies for a long time next to him, intermittently touching him. Also in the background we see a computer screen with the words “Read Me” in big letters.

Eventually Morvern goes to the screen reluctantly and reads her boyfriend’s suicide note. We read the words “…don’t try and understand…” and “I love you. Be Brave.” She then leaves to make a phone call at a train station. Can’t bring herself to make the call. Sits on a bench for a while. The pay phone ring and she answers it. She has a conversation with a person looking for perhaps his girlfriend or wife, or a mother looking for her daughter. Morvern tells the man or woman not to worry. They wish each other Merry Christmas. Morvern hangs up and walks back home. At home, she sits on her living room floor and opens the presents from her boyfriend which include a leather jacket, a lighter and a mixed tape of music. Then she takes a long bath, gets dressed, takes some money out of her boyfriend’s pants and goes out to a bar and then a party with her Lanna.

Her actions seem motivated by shock at first, but then, by the end of the film, you realize it’s more than just her boyfriend’s suicide. You begin to think about who she was before his suicide and what she’s become afterwards and why. Morvern Callar is a great character study. A great film. Watch it! Love it!