Anthony Iessi Morvern Callar is a gross, selfish woman, and yet her story is fascinatingly told. I really liked the first half in Scotland as a poor working class youth, but when she vacationed in Spain, I felt that the film lost it's gritty, nasty edge. Paradise is not where this film shines. It shines in blood, and muck. Some films are meant to be purely unpleasant. By far, this is Lynne Ramsay's finest screen achievement.

avik-basu1889 The character of Morvern is truly unique. She is not someone that one will completely hate. Neither is she a likable, sympathy- inducing individual. Her actions remain suspended in that complicated corridor of uncertainty which makes her an impenetrable, mysterious yet exceedingly interesting anti-hero.'Morvern Callar' is a very visual film. Right from the very first shot Lynne Ramsay creates a very peculiar and surreal tone for the film. She uses vibrant colours quite frequently to express Morvern's mental instability . The moods change quite regularly and accordingly so does the style of capturing different scenes at different points in the story. Even with her first film 'Ratcatcher', Ramsay had shown us her propensity to find poetry in the quietness of the mundane. There are visually poetic moments in 'Morvern Callar' too and in abundance.Samantha Morton has to be admired for her performance. A big chunk of the film is dependent on her facial expressiveness. The character of Morvern is complicated. In some ways she is similar to Julie from Kieślowski's 'Three Colors: Blue'. Both Julie and Morvern make a conscious effort to detach themselves from the past after a tragedy. But Julie is allowed to have an arc, while Ramsey vehemently keeps Morvern from learning any life lessons. Also Julie's reasons for detaching herself from the memories of her family were borne out of her reluctance to get tortured by the pain. Although it is never spelled out, I think Morvern's reasons are borne out of defiance to her late boyfriend. It is mentioned in the film that Morvern used to be under foster care. So it is reasonable to expect that throughout her life, she must have had to struggle to find a sense of acceptance. Her boyfriend's decision to commit suicide in her eyes is a betrayal to the trust between them and a betrayal to the promise of accepting her and being present in her life. So her subsequent actions to categorically defy her dead boyfriend's last wishes is her way to assert herself and break away from her 'selfish' boyfriend's grasps. After this sudden loss, she again becomes a drifter like she must have been under foster care during her childhood.I don't know whether I can watch 'Morvern Callar' too often. It is a perfect example of a film which I like, but admire more for how it allows me to speculate about the character motivations. It presents a very complicated character who is really tough to completely embrace, but easy to remain completely engrossed by. As I have implied previously, I think 'Morvern Callar' is a twisted piece of work with deeply feminist themes simmering underneath the somewhat horrifying and surreal surface, and that makes it worth recommending.

Framescourer A magnificent but modest film telling an oblique, impressionistic story of a Glaswegian teenager growing up. Samantha Morton oscillates through the film with all the elastic contradictions of an adolescent girl: insecurity, abandon and the curious cocktail of the two when it comes to investigating her own sexuality.At the heart of the story is an act of opportunism as Morvern Callar appropriates a boyfriend's work as her own. This episode is recounted in one of my favourite sequences of all cinema, a flour fight over a dead body. Lynne Ramsay conjures magnificent photography, images as indelible, iconic and mystifying as the Emily Mortimer condiment-sex in Young Adam or Derek Jacobi approaching the canvas as Bacon in Maybury's Love Is The Devil.Needless to say this is not some confusing one-off - a wonderful, Iberian-bleached sequence hints at a conscious horizon of existential catastrophe for Morvern and later sequences of love making have Latin warmth; ardour and bliss in equal, low-key measure. 8/10

David Lowther A dark film, one of the darkest i've ever seen, yet almost comic with its playfulness between the morbidity of the plot and the use of music and camera usage. The soundtrack is also brilliant: you would expect a film with such a dark plot line to stick with the usual musics associated with its theme, however the use of unnaturally cheery music is excellent, and hilarious at some points. this film is an all round work of art, though perhaps a little slow moving for some people's tastes. i however thoroughly enjoyed it, and hope to watch many more films like it. one of the films strongest points has to be its use of camera: the angles, shots and movements are amazing in points, not to mention the scenery used is beautiful. the ironies of life in this film are excellent, and i believe it is an excellent representation of modern life for the working class, and how disturbed a human mind can become.