Track 29
| Track 29 | |
|---|---|
| 220px
Movie Poster
|
|
| Directed by | Nicolas Roeg |
| Produced by | George Harrison Rick McCallum |
| Written by | Dennis Potter |
| Starring | <templatestyles src="Plainlist/styles.css"/> |
| Music by | Stanley Myers |
| Cinematography | Alex Thomson |
| Edited by | Tony Lawson |
|
Production
company |
|
| Distributed by | Island Pictures |
|
Release dates
|
5 August 1988 (UK) 9 September 1988 (USA) |
|
Running time
|
91 min. |
| Country | United Kingdom United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $5,000,000 (estimated) |
| Box office | $429,028 (USA) |
Track 29 is a 1988 film directed by Nicolas Roeg. It was produced by George Harrison's HandMade Films with Rick McCallum. The film was nominated for and won a few awards at regional film festivals.[1] The writer, Dennis Potter, adapted his earlier television play, Schmoedipus (1974), changing the setting from London to the United States.[2] It was filmed in Wilmington and Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina
Plot
The wife of a small town doctor tires of his spending too much time playing with his model trains, and starts thinking about the son she gave up for adoption years before. While dining at a cafe, she meets a British hitchhiker, who believes he is her son. Years earlier, she was raped and gave up her son for adoption. The son may be a figment of her imagination. They start to get to know each other and the son starts to hate the husband. The wife begins to fear for her husband's safety.
Main cast
| Actor | Role |
|---|---|
| Theresa Russell | Linda Henry |
| Gary Oldman | Martin |
| Christopher Lloyd | Henry Henry |
| Colleen Camp | Arlanda |
| Sandra Bernhard | Nurse Stein |
| Seymour Cassel | Dr. Bernard Fairmont |
Critical reception
Janet Maslin of The New York Times thought the film missed the mark:
<templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" />
Though the screenwriter and the director clearly share certain affinities, their collective efforts on Track 29, which opens today at the D. W. Griffith and Quad Cinema, amount to overkill, particularly since the direction is so laden with contempt for the characters... Though Mr. Roeg's films can often be perverse (and startlingly, bracingly so), they are rarely this silly. Nor are they this maddening, since Track 29 does contain the seeds of something tantalizing. Linda's attempt to come to terms with her past through a wildly unpredictable, even dangerous fantasy has the stamp of Mr. Potter's better material, but it has been made too mindless to have any impact. The real urgency of Mr. Oldman's performance, and the wicked blandness of Mr. Lloyd's, seem regrettably wasted, under the circumstances.[3]
However, Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times rated it 3 stars out of his 4 star rating system and found the film well done but painful:
<templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" />
Somebody asked me if I liked this movie, and I had to answer that I did not, but then I realized once again what an inadequate word "like" is. The reason I didn't like "Track 29" is that the film is unlikable - perhaps deliberately so. But that doesn't make it a bad film, and it probably makes it a more interesting one. Like many of the strange, convoluted works of Nicolas Roeg (Don't Look Now, Bad Timing, Eureka, Insignificance), it is bad-tempered, kinky and misogynistic. But not every film is required to massage us with pleasure. Some are allowed to be abrasive and frustrating, to make us think.[4]
References
- ↑ Track 29 (1988) - Awards
- ↑ Track 29 (1988) - Plot Summary
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
