Personal Velocity: Three Portraits of unusual depth and realism

Personal Velocity: Three Portraits is a surprisingly realistic glimpse into the lives of three women. First-time director Rebecca Miller adapted her own successful novel into this refreshing film and won the prestigious Grand Jury Prize and the Excellence in Cinematography Award at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival.

Each portrait is a separate entity, essentially three short stories. They are related by place, theme, and narrator only: New York City women whose lives, miserably begun and narrated by John Ventimiglia, are about to change.

Delia (Kyra Sedgwick) had an abysmal childhood. Motherless and isolated from her drug-addled father, she learned to use her body as a means of power and control through sex. Her destructive path leads her to marry Kurt (David Warshofsky), an obsessively jealous and abusive husband. She leaves her husband, taking the kids with her.

Greta (Parker Posey) hails from a more affluent yet still degenerate family, her father an opportunist as a lawyer and husband, roving from family to family as fancy and boredom send him. She rebelled after she realized his infidelity to her mother, rejecting the rank, file, and firm of her ivy-league law school upbringing, opting for a boring but faithful boyfriend, Lee (Tim Guinee), and an unimaginative/modest job editing cookbooks. But when hot new author Thavi (Joel del Feunte) asks her to edit his novel, she is forced to reassess the path she has chosen.

Paula (Fairuza Balk), the last, is also the youngest. Another product of a dysfunctional childhood, Paula is pregnant and running. She witnesses a murder and then just begins driving, eventually picking up another alienated teen, Kevin (Lou Taylor Pucci), in the driving rain. The father of Paula's child is Vincent (Seth Gilliam), the man who took her in after she ran away from home and became her boyfriend. Kevin has been mysteriously and brutally beaten, and through her fleeting time with him, Paula will see her own life reflected in the sad worn eyes of her traveling companion.

While the film is unflinchingly brutal at times, especially in Delia's case, there is a kind of quiet optimism that succeeds without feeling mushy and escapist. The camera work and acting is refreshingly awkward, brilliant grittiness translating into fascinating realism. There is a very homemade aspect to the film, and regardless of whether it was a budget issue or just intentional, it is quite effective. I think Miss Miller deserves the benefit of the doubt. Very worthwhile.

Rated R for brief violence, some strong sexuality & language. Playing at Dupont Circle Cineplex Odeon and Bethesda Rowe.