Lolly Polley leads indie lm 'Guinevere'

Small and slow but rarely plodding, "Guinevere" often strikes just the right note of need, change and longing with its protagonists. And somehow, it emerges with everyone's individuality intact, despite attempts at molding certain members of the cast into unformed, Protean beings, into a Guinevere.

Harper Sloane (Sarah Polley) is about to ship off for law school, but she doesn't know why. Rather, she knows why she doesn't want to go: She doesn't want to go because it is not her decision. It is family tradition, but nobody ever bothered to ask her what she wanted to do. For her entire life, Harper has been along for the ride, a passenger in the backseat of her parents' cars, clawing at the windows but pretending to be perfectly happy when asked if she likes the scenery.

Courtesy of Miramax Beauty Sarah Polley continues her rise to actress stardom in "Guinevere."

Watching Harper sit quietly at the dinner table while her older sister, brother-in-law and parents banter and argue among themselves, unable to speak up and offer an opinion - if she even has an opinion - explains better than any exposition why Harper does what she does when she meets engaging (and alcoholic) photographer Connie Fitzpatrick (Stephen Rea). Connie is middle-aged, but with his eye for detail he spies in Harper something wonderful begging to get out. He takes her under his wing, teaches her about art, about feeling, about being, about seduction. Their relationship is tempestuous, bringing out the best and the worst in both of them.

In a way, Connie sucks out Harper's youth like a vampire. In the beginning stages of their relationship, she falls into the trap of seeing herself as others want to see her. But under Connie's tutelage, the greatest gift she receives is to see herself as she wants to, not as others do. Harper gains a measure of immortality, or at least life she didn't have before. She finds herself. She learns to speak up, to offer an opinion, to have a "self" instead of a "you." It's horrible to observe Harper early in the film, unsure of herself, cowed by life. It's horrible to watch her at the end as she squarely breaks Connie's heart - and he hers. But life is nothing if not transient, as is the particular body in which Connie's current Guinevere resides. Guinevere is not corporeal, but a soul that skips from body to body, like a dozen candles lit from a match with the same fire.

"Guinevere" marks the first time that Sarah Polley has owned a movie so completely that it's impossible to imagine it without her. Rea does fine work here, but he lacks the definition and the range that Polley brings to her performance. Her indelible work in such films as "The Sweet Hereafter" and here, her staunch refusal to appear on the cover of "Seventeen" or "Maxim" and her pure glow of talent prove that she's no one hit wonder. Polley may never have a bona fide hit (her first studio film, "Go," was a far cry from box office bonanza but did decent business), but she'll have something better: A career.

Harper explains her relationship with Connie with the wisdom gained only through necessary experience. "He was my most spectacular and cherished fuck-up - and I was his Guinevere, whatever that means," she tells us, and I suspect that ten years down the road, writer/director Audrey Wells will be saying much the same about the film itself. "Guinevere" is not perfect by any means, but it has elements of great promise.

Some elements have made good on their individual promise (Polley). Others will soon (Wells). Still others have seen their promise come and go (Rea), though there's plenty of time left to recapture it. The only promise I myself will make is this: Watching "Guinevere" won't be as fulfilling an experience as what Harper gains with Connie, but it tries. And that's about the best anyone can promise these days.

11-19-99