Two Bad Girls and One Sad Girl: Three Great Little Films

Don’t let the title fool you, Mini’s First Time may sound and look like a lightweight sexy romp but it quickly turns very, very dark.  Nikki Reed (who starred in and co-wrote Thirteen) portrays a high school senior who plots the downfall of her self-involved mother step by step, first by seducing her stepfather, (played brilliantly by Alec Baldwin.) and then…any more details would spoil the shocking plot, but don’t miss it.    If you judge a DVD by its cover you may think Hard Candy is a reworking of Little Red Riding Hood as a horror flick.  And yes, it is in a way, but with a nasty twist that turns a simple story (through an internet chat room a 30-something photographer lures a 14 year-old girl to his hillside lair) into a psychological thrill-ride that is often implausible but never dull.  Patrick Wilson plays Jeff, a pedophile with whom you may begin to sympathize (one of the facets of the film many critics didn’t like). His supposed victim, Haley, is played by Ellen Page, a talented Canadian actor who was 15 at the time.    Maggie Gyllenhaal’s portrayal of a young mother who has just been released prison won   her a Golden Globe nomination this year.  Sherrybaby made me feel like a social worker watching a client who didn’t have much of a chance to get her life together.  This is a low-budget, low-key film which nevertheless does a first rate job of telling a heart wrenching tale that is as believable as it is bleak.  Danny Trejo (Runaway Train, Heat) who has played many small film roles as a tattooed convict/gangbanger (which he was in a former life) for once plays a good guy, an old friend of Sherry’s who is now one of her drug rehab counselors.   If gritty and wrenching social-realism is what you crave then this film is just the ticket