Surviving Desire (1991)

Hal Hartley's short, sharp rumination on love, sex, and Dostoyevsky -- originally produced for public television -- ranks with his best work and still serves as perhaps the best introduction to the iconoclastic writer/director's unique, often intentionally stilted aesthetic. A good deal of the credit goes to Hartley's longtime leading man -- some might say his Jimmy Stewart -- the lanky, hangdog Martin Donovan. Donovan's gifts for deadpan comedy and interpreting Hartley's dense, encyclopedic dialogue are in full evidence here, so much so that -- as is often the case with micro-budgeted independent features -- some of the more unprofessional cast members pale beside him. Though co-star Mary Ward makes a fetchingly oblique, pixie-ish object of affection, she doesn't quite have the chops to make Hartley's lines sing the way his former naif/muse Adrienne Shelly could. (To be fair to Ward, the director has conceived her Sofia character as a somewhat embittered lost cause.) Still, Surviving Desire is almost delirious with invention: A clandestined first kiss between Donovan and Ward gives way to a silent, impromptu dance sequence that's like a cross between Jacques Demy and Mark Morris. Imminently quotable, stylistically audacious, and occasionally preposterous, Surviving Desire and its follow-up, Simple Men (1992), closed the chapter on Hartley's fascination with suburban New York romance before moving on to more ambitious fare such as Amateur and Henry Fool. ~ Michael Hastings, All Movie Guide