DVD Review: Personal Velocity (A)

Personal Velocity (2002)
Directed by Rebecca Miller
Starring Kyra Sedgewick, Parker Posey and Fairuza Balk
MPAA: R
Grade: A

Review by Scott Standish

Everyone takes different paths at different speeds through this world. The paths of three fiercely independent women, Delia (Kyra Sedgewick), Greta (Parker Posey) and Paula (Fairuza Balk) are examined in Rebecca Miller's award winning low budget feature Personal Velocity.

Delia has always used her body to get what she wants in life. With a great bod and a penchant for having fun she develops a reputation, but she doesn't really care what anyone thinks. She's got attitude and she doesn't take crap from anybody. That is, until she falls in love and marries. Her husband beats her regularly and like most battered women she is scared and confused. Her most striking moment of personal velocity occurs when she decides to take action and leave her former life behind for good.

Greta (played by DVD Confidential fave Parker Posey) had her world shattered when her father dumped her mom for a younger woman. So she chose a husband that she knew would never leave her. Her own personal velocity increases as her career unexpectedly takes off. Her new world is smarter, faster and hipper than the one that she had chosen for herself. The growing pains that Greta goes through are painful and touching, and the acting performance by Posey is one of the best of the year.

Indie queen Fairuza Balk stars in the final segment of this trilogy of short stories. Balk is Paula, a runaway that finds love and acceptance with Vincent (Seth Gilliam). Vincent is a gentle soul that helps her get back on her feet. They are happy.

However, when a horrible accident occurs she finds herself driving to her mother's house in a panic, trying to piece together some form of logic to her world. She picks up a hitchhiker that has been badly beaten and discovers emotions that she never knew she had. All of these painful events push the young girl to the brink and Fairuza Balk does a wonderful job (as usual) of bringing this character to life.

Shot on digital and reportedly brought in under half a million dollars, Personal Velocity is perhaps one of the most confident indie movies I have seen in a long time. Well acted, directed and shot (especially for digital), this film is a rare treat.

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