Directed by David Siegel and Scott McGehee • 2001 • United States
Starring Tilda Swinton, Goran Visnjic, Jonathan Tucker
Tilda Swinton delivers a tour-de-force performance as a mother driven to extremes in this stylish and psychologically rich reworking of Max Ophuls’s 1949 noir THE RECKLESS MOMENT. She stars as Margaret Hall, a lonely Lake Tahoe housewife whose naval-officer husband spends months at sea on an aircraft carrier. In his absence, Margaret does her best to do right by her family, no matter what. So when her eldest son’s lover washes up on the beach in front of their house, she does the only thing an unflinchingly devoted mother could: she hides the body to protect her son. What begins as a riveting cat-and-mouse game soon turns into a haunting love story with self-sacrifice at its center.
Up Next in Neonoir
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Absence of Malice
Directed by Sydney Pollack • 1981 • United States
Starring Sally Field, Paul Newman, Bob BalabanIn America, can a man be guilty until proven innocent? Suppose you picked up this morning’s newspaper and your life was a front-page headl...
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The Big Sleep
Directed by Michael Winner • 1978 • United States
Starring Robert Mitchum, Sarah Miles, Richard BooneRobert Mitchum steps into the gumshoes of detective Philip Marlowe in this bold 1970s reimagining of the Raymond Chandler classic set in England. When Marlowe takes on what appears to be a routi...
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Blood Simple
Directed by Joel Coen and Ethan Coen • 1984 • United States
Joel and Ethan Coen's career-long darkly comic road trip through misfit America began with this razor-sharp, hard-boiled neonoir set somewhere in Texas, where a sleazy bar owner releases a torrent of violence with one murderous though...
