Posted: Sun., Jan. 19, 2003, 2:31pm PT

Sundance 2003

Levity

By Todd McCarthy

Kirsten Dunst and Billy Bob Thornton star in 'Levity,' written and directed by 'Men in Black's' Ed Solomon.

A Sony Pictures Classics (in U.S.) release of a Sony Pictures Classics and StudioCanal presentation of a FilmColony production in association with Echo Lake Prods., Entitled Entertainment and Revelations Entertainment. Produced by Richard N. Gladstein, Adam J. Merims, Ed Solomon. Executive producers, Morgan Freeman, Lori McCreary, Fred Schepisi, Andrew Spaulding, James Burke, Doug Mankoff. Co-producer, Irene Litinsky. Directed, written by Ed Solomon.

Manuel Jordan - Billy Bob Thornton Miles Evans - Morgan Freeman Adele Easely - Holly Hunter Sofia Mellinger - Kirsten Dunst Mackie Whittaker - Dorian Harewood Abner Easely - Geoffrey Wigdor Young Abner Easely - Luke Robertson Don - Billoah Greene Claire Mellinger - Catherine Colvey Senor Aguilar - Manuel Aranguiz

"Levity" is a half-baked moral fable that suffers from insufficiencies both of narrative concreteness and religious depth. Screenwriter Ed Solomon's long-gestating directorial debut, about a murderer's journey toward redemption after his release from a long prison term, feels like a covert born-again Christian drama, without the identifying label or specific New Testament references. But despite an effectively low-key performance by Billy Bob Thornton in the leading role, pic is no more spiritually insightful or illuminating than Sunday School instructional story, and a lot less dramatically coherent. Short of putting the film on the Christian circuit, Sony Classics will have trouble generating much of an audience for this blurry concoction.

Needless to say, Solomon couldn't be further from the zany territory of his "Men in Black" and "Bill & Ted" screenplays with this deliberately paced, borderline pretentious effort. Sporting shoulder-length gray locks and a calm, unemotive countenance, Thornton plays Manuel Jordan, who as a teen committed a senseless murder of a convenience store clerk during a robbery. Unexpectedly released against his wishes 22 years later, Manuel suddenly finds himself on the outside for the first time in his adult life and, with nowhere in particular to go, returns to the vicinity of his former home in the slums of a big, unnamed city. (Film was shot entirely in a wintry Montreal.)

After all these years, visions of his young victim's face continually appear to Manuel, who has long since accepted full responsibility for his crime. "I don't want forgiveness," he insists, and while he can articulate what he believes are the five steps toward redemption for taking another person's life, he never expects to achieve it himself. All the same, the film is scarcely about anything else, and works toward it with a steady gait that any clergyman would admire.

Manuel gets a job as a custodian at a small community center run, after a fashion, by a shady pastor (Morgan Freeman). The place serves its purpose in keeping some comparatively well-mannered inner-city boys off the streets at least part of the time, and is sometimes visited by the wayward Sofia (Kirsten Dunst), in ill-defined flight from her upper-crust origins.

None of these characters is encumbered by any particular moorings to reality, dramatic or otherwise, and that goes double for Adele Easely (Holly Hunter), a brittle, straight-talking woman who, when first met, looks like a successful upper-middle class professional but who, for unknown reasons, lives in the worst part of town. Adele was the sister of the kid Manuel killed, but he doesn't tell her that, as he instead allows an intimacy to build to a physical encounter that constitutes a major moral transgression on his part.

At the same time, however, Manuel's contact with Adele's punky teenage son Abner (Geoffrey Wigdor), who's involved in a petty street feud with another kid, directly leads to Manuel's big opportunity to achieve redemption both by preventing another human from being killed and by stopping Abner from following in Manuel's footsteps by becoming a murderer.

The central notion of a killer fully embracing the import of his act to the extent of denying himself the right to a real life of his own is a powerful one.

But it also encourages Solomon to adopt an overly solemn, schoolmarmish attitude that results in a film that's drearily Good for You rather than remotely entertaining. Even on its own terms, there is no complexity or rigor to engage the intellect, to stimulate meaningful reflection on the script's themes.

Placing such a simply drawn character at a film's center can prove effective if you surround him with sharply delineated figures and incidents around him, and Thornton underplays to intriguing effect. But the supporting characters are all mystifying to greater or lesser degrees. It's clear that Freeman's man of God isn't what he appears to be, but we only learn enough about him to realize that he's got to take off at a certain point. Hunter's strong, direct line readings give Adele some welcome definition, but it remains hard to define her place in this world. Dunst suffers from the most underwritten role, and the card her character is handed at the end is far from adequately prepared for dramatically.

Using a restricted, somber palette of color, Solomon and lenser Roger Deakins achieve a quiet, gliding visual style that suggests the presence of someone just passing through. Other tech credits are fine. Included in the end credits is a prominent thank you to pic's "guardian angel," Pat Boone.

Camera (Deluxe color), Roger Deakins; editor, Pietro Scalia; music, Mark Oliver Everett; music supervisor, Liza Richardson; production designer, Francois Seguin; art director, Pierre Perrault; set decorators, Daniele Rouleau, Patrice Bengle, Michel Clement; costume designer, Marie-Sylvie Deveau; sound (Dolby Digital/SDDS), Claude La Haye; sound designer/supervisor, Stephen Hunter Flick; assistant director, Michael Williams; casting, Andrea Kenyon and Associates. Reviewed at Sundance Film Festival (Premieres-opening night), Salt Lake City, Jan. 16, 2003. Running time: 100 MIN.