"Morvern Callar" (2003)

Some people don’t live linearly, with all the constant forward momentum that suggests. They live from moment to moment. They “live in the moment”, attempting to get a contact high from the rush of their devil may care ways. I imagine many people who live like this must have a difficult time processing guilt, grief and loss. They live to avoid these harsh realities, and if they were ever given a moment’s pause, they’d be force to confront whatever it is they’re running from. In Movern Callar, Morvern Callar (Samantha Morton) is such a person. We first see her discovering her boyfriend has committed suicide. Her response is telling. She doesn’t report his death, and proceeds to attend a party with a friend. Her escalating response -- or, rather, lack of response -- to this terrible incident, and likely deeper strains of angst from a discernibly troubled life, feel callous and opportunistic. They are, but they’re just as much reckless and self-destructive. Morvern discovers her boyfriend wrote a novel, and she steals authorship of it, sending it out to publishers. She then disposes of the body and claims he’s moved away. Morvern, as you might tell, comes off a bit like a sociopath – but director Lynne Ramsey keeps suggesting the ways that Morvern does this both out of a need to survive and a desire to forget. She seems to do it out of a need for money, which she then blows on a meandering trip to Spain, but she also does it so she doesn’t actually have to deal with the death of someone she cared about. It’s a character study of a troubled but highly narcissistic person, who’s all but destined to never change. Where an event like a death would be a moment to catalyze change in most people, it simply causes Morvern to double down and increase her impetuous nature.   

Grade: B+