Claire Dolan (1999)

A bittersweet film about an Irish immigrant working as a mid-level prostitute in Manhattan, Claire Dolan tells a darkly intriguing story that is less about sex than trying to attain love. Dolan--portrayed with subtle melancholy by Katrin Cartlidge (who died in 2002 from complications of pneumonia and blood poisoning)--is too pragmatic to think she could ever fall in love with one of her clients. They are merely business transactions. What she wants is to have the unconditional love of having her own baby. When she meets a quiet cabbie (Vincent D'Onofrio), it's apparent that despite what they say to each other, their troubled relationship is based on desperation, not love. Director Lodge Kerrigan offers sparing insight into Dolan's past, just enough to make you concerned about her uncertain future. He doesn't try to make the characters understand whether they can accept each other, and he vehemently refuses to reassure his audience that everything will be all right. For moviegoers who have been conditioned by happy Hollywood endings, this can be a little unsettling. But that uncertainty--as in real life--is part of the beauty of this understated drama. --Jae-Ha Kim Amazon.com

FILM IS FULL OF ATMOSPHERE

The tag for this movie could easily be - people suck so don't bother trying to form a relationship with anyone. I can appreciate what the director was trying to do, a dark and stark look at human relationships, but this film is chock full of atmosphere and little else. We watch as Claire Dolan says and does whatever a man wants in order to have sex with them. She needs the money to pay off a debt she owes to this older man. We watch as her mother dies in a nursing home and Claire makes sure they do not notify the older man who has been footing the bill. This "friend" of her parents has been forcing her to prostitute herself to pay off a debt incurred by her mother's care? Scenes between these two characters are tense and the screen vibrates with violent emotions.

Claire gets the heck out of Dodge and runs away, hoping to escape and reconnect with extended family. Claire exists as salon worker and tries to form a relationship with another desperate person. Odd things start to happen and we are not surprised by the reappearance of the older man. He has tracked her down. This time we see the heartless violence of this man as he orders her back to work.

I cringed when Claire tries to forge emotional bonds with other people. When Claire opens about her mother's death to a stranger who happened to smile at her is heartbreaking. The sexual encouters are cold or cruel. Especailly the instance where a man professes to be just as repelled as her by the situation but uses her all the same. Claire's lover easily moves on with his life, remarried and getting another woman pregnant. This film is bleak and shows the utter isolation of mankind despite any attempts to the contrary. Claire Dolan is one messed up woman and her solution of having a child so she too could experience love is a diaster just waiting to repeat itself.

I can certainly appreciate the director's view but I cannot forgive the huge mess left at the end. Why was this old man intent on ruining Claire's life? There is a vague reference to "knowing" her since age 12 but nothing is ever defined about their relationship. The whole plot hinged on this odd relationship but it was never explained. There is also the whole "Claire" and "Lucy" identity issue. Claire used the name "Lucy" when working but the lover discovered two seperate identification cards with seemingly different women in the photos. Are they the same person or does she have a sister? We do see a woman walk down the street that has the lover staring hard. Is it the woman from the Lucy I.D.? This is left up to the viewer to decide. This movie ultimately left me frustrated by all the questions thrown out there but maybe that was the point? Life rarely provides answers..... July 21, 2008

If you like artistic films, then this is a good film

You would think that from some of the reviews of this film, that it is one of the great movies of all time - a classic. And I can see how some people could see that. I will say that it is a good artistic film. It is a film that works on many levels, where setting, music, and photography could be see to meld together into one large portrait that resembles that of a masterpiece work of art. Like a painting by Monet, for example. As to whether or not it is a film I would personally like to see or rather keep may be another matter.
It is a thinking man's movie. A movie that serves a good purpose in exposing some of the darker and more negative aspects of life. If we do not put the spotlight on what is wrong in the world, then there can be little hope for whatever healing is needed to address the issue that is brought up by the film. Or at least that is one interpretation that I came away from the film. Although this film can be interpreted in several other ways because of the way it was made.
Others may not like this type of film because the subject matter is somewhat depressing. And still may not like the direction in which the director decided to execute the story. But this is art. And not everybody likes the same thing when it comes to art.
Personally, and subjectively, I will say that I thought some scenes were a bit over the top. And even though this is a film about prostitution, I thought there were way too many "love-making" scenes in the movie. Some of it was a bit unnecessary. Some of the best scenes, imo, you can find on youtube. Overall, a great artistic film and just a good, but not great, film overall, imo. July 5, 2008

sexual but not sexy

We open on images of urban architecture. Skyscrapers, high-rise apartments, covered in opaque glass and shot at angles that serve less to show us what lies inside these buildings than to reflect the world without.

This world is an ominous place and few people are made more aware of it than the titular Claire Dolan.

A Manhattan prostitute who caters to sorry, white-collar johns, Claire has a moment of clarity when her elderly mother dies under mysterious, unresolved circumstances. For Claire, intimacy has always been a carefully-constructed illusion she creates for her clients. "You're not like other men," she's fond of saying. "You're beautiful," they're found of replying. Neither is entirely true (no disrespect to deceased actress Katrin Cartlidge, who some will remember from noteworthy performances in Breaking the Waves or Naked).

When relationships are measured in dollars and every human exchange comes with cost, it's no surprise when Claire only has a passerby on the street to confide "I just buried my mother." The stranger offers little comfort. Claire attempts to restart her life across the Hudson River but ultimately fails to outrun her past - they have a way of catching up to people and hers comes in the form of her pimp (Colm Meaney, overjoyed to be playing something other than an Irish gangster). Along the way, she meets and ultimately falls in love with sensitive taxi driver, Elton (Vincent D'Onofrio, in what future generations will term his "svelte period"), playing wink-wink with a film archetype made famous by Scorsese and De Niro. Claire later seeks emotional consolation via the bearing of a child - it's unclear if this is a repudiation of her former lifestyle or the ultimate indulgence in it. We're left to judge this for ourselves.

The film is sexual but not sexy. The only time we can reasonably certain of Claire's pleasure in the sex act is during a tryst with Elton after he agrees to help pay off her debts. Like Austrian filmmaker Michael Haneke (The Piano Teacher, Cache, Funny Games), writer/director Lodge Kerrigan is consistently indicting the audience of its crimes (remember those reflective surfaces of the opening). Just as Claire cannot experience true intimacy, neither can we. The camera is a voyeur, frequently recording Claire's passionless sex with johns from across the room, around corners, through the crack of a door left ajar, and if we still didn't get it, reflected on a blackened television screen. All the while, she has the bored/wounded look of an aging porn star, her eyes - those windows of the soul - serving less to show us what lies within than reflect the world without.

Interesting footnote: Lodge Kerrigan would later direct a film called In God's Hands that had to be abandoned after severe damage to the negative (it starred Maggie Gyllenhaal and Peter Sarsgaard). Steven Soderbergh was a producer on that film, as he would be on Kerrigan's incredible picture, Keane. That film is available on DVD with cuts by both director and producer, an interesting exercise in filmschoolishness. January 17, 2007

Lodge Kerrigan's perspective on INVICTUS

CLAIRE DOLAN is an exquisitely rendered exploration of anomie in modern American culture. Claire Dolan is a prostitute in debt to a pitiless pimp/businessman, Roland Cain. The viewer is not informed about the genesis of their relationship, nor how Claire's debt was incurred. One may infer that it is long standing, perhaps since Claire was only 12 years old, and that it is linked to her mother, whose death early in the film prompts Claire to bolt from Manhattan and attempt to establish herself in a Roland-free life. She discovers, at last, one thing she can trust: Roland's ability to find her and poison her existence.

Enough cannot be said about Katrin Cartlidge's remarkable performance in this film. She projects unbearably contained misery. Just as commanding is Colm Meany as Roland, surprisingly convincing as her falsely amiable nemesis. Rubbing up against them is a sad-eyed Vincent D'Onofrio, who provides an astute low-key beautifully wrought contribution as Claire's taxi driving boyfriend, Elton.

The world these people inhabit is a world that is unyielding in its suffocating coldness. No one offers sympathy, hope, warmth or succor. Claire knows that she has only herself to rely upon, but makes persistent heartbreaking tiny attempts to connect with others on a more human level.

She makes a comment to a mother about her baby's beauty, and the mother gathers her other child and leaves the playground. "I buried my mother today," Claire tells a stranger at a newspaper kiosk. The woman she confides in looks askance and hurries away. During her ill-fated attempt to flee from Roland, she gets a cat. When Roland finds Claire, he kills the cat. Her boyfriend, Elton, makes a determined but doomed attempt to understand her work, and therefore Claire, better, but his efforts lead to torqued helplessness and frustration. These feelings are compounded after he is nearly killed by a thief in his cab, and suffers a vicious, effective psychological and physical assault from Roland. When Claire comes home that night, seeking relief from her brutal existence, Elton embraces her welcomingly, but ends up echoing her treatment at the hands of Roland.

The menacing music, the framing of the shots and relentless capturing of glass and steel box images in Manhattan contribute to the enervating feeling of the story. Claire's dead face as she services the needs of her clients, her living quarters, dull muted clothing, especially her awful giant overcoat, reflect the sterility of her existence and the dearth of warmth in her interactions with everyone in her life.

"I have learnt silence from the talkative," wrote Kahlil Gibran, "toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers." CLAIRE DOLAN is a compelling, powerful teacher. It reverberates within the soul and, please God, sparks compassion in those lucky enough to see it. June 20, 2006

VIncent D'Onofrio saved this movie from getting 1 star

I found Claire Dolan to be a bleak, sad and depressing portrayal of a woman trying to earn money to may off a debt by selling herself to wealthy business men. Not only did Katrin Cartlidge (Claire Dolan) not have any depth to her role, but I found her terribly unappealing. She only had one facial expression through out the entire movie, even when she was having sex. She showed no feeling or emotion. Granted, some of the dullness to her character was due to her role, but it seemed as though there was nothing underneath.
Vincent D'Onofrio was the saving grace of this film, playing Claire's love and pseudo-savior. He carried the entire cast, along with the very talented Colm Meaney. This movie is an OK choice for any fan of Mr. D'Onofrio's, but other than that, i found the film to be very boring and slow moving. February 23, 2006

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