Verdict
Summary
Mill Creek’s double feature Blu-ray set of these two Morgan Creek Productions titles are oddly matched, and while Imaginary Crimes is the better film of the pair, I would’ve preferred it if Mill Creek had paired Trial By Jury, another Morgan Creek thriller with Silent Fall, as they both came out in 1994. The transfers are adequate, but don’t come with any bonus features. Subtitles are included.
Imaginary Crimes Plot:
A con man tries raising two daughters on his own in the early 1960s.
Review:
Part dreamer and part con man, Ray Weiler (Harvey Keitel) finds himself a widower in the late 1950s when his wife (played by Kelly Lynch) passes away, leaving him with their two daughters Sonya (Fairuza Balk) and very young Greta (Elizabeth Moss) to raise on his own. With a pocketful of hopes and dreams, but only a full time hustle to provide for his family, Ray seems always just a razor’s edge away from committing crimes and somehow getting away with it, but when he manages to get Sonya into a prestigious all-girl’s academy, he has to come up with the tuition money to make it happen, which means he takes his cons to the next level. When he enters into a very shady agreement with an investor (played by Chris Penn), Ray is flush with cash but zero on returns, putting himself and the welfare of his daughters at risk when he is finally pegged as a fraud and he decides to abandon his girls to evade the law. With young Greta put into the foster care system, Ray finally comes to terms with his conscience and tries to make things right by accepting prison time and allowing some closure for his two girls who deserve to be together.
An affecting and well made coming of age drama, Imaginary Crimes really got to me by the end with its poetical narration (by Balk, who looks back on her life with her difficult father) and its lovely score by Stephen Endelman. Keitel never aims for sympathy or anything beyond what you see on the surface with his performance, which really makes his character work, and director Anthony Drazan did a great job in keeping his movie teetering between nostalgia and tragedy, allowing his characters to grow and mature, even in the abundant use of flashbacks. An underrated gem, Imaginary Crimes might be an unsung classic just waiting to be discovered.
Silent Fall Plot:
An autistic child might be the only witness to the murder of his parents, and a child psychologist specializing in autism must tap into the boy’s memory to make him a credible witness.
Review:
A well-off couple is found brutally murdered in their bedroom, and their autistic son, a nonverbal child named Tim (Ben Faulkner) is either the only witness or committed the murders himself, as he is found wielding the murder weapon. His 18-year old sister Sylvie (Liv Tyler in her debut film role) is also found battered and bloody in a closet, and the police don’t know what to make of all this, so they call in a retired specialist named Rainer (Richard Dreyfuss) to see if he can get through to the boy using his expertise in autism to tap into his mind. As Rainer works, he discovers that Tim has an uncanny ability to recall (and express) verbal phrases he’s heard and catalogued, which makes for an interesting (if totally unbelievable) investigation for Rainer and the detectives (and a surly doctor, played by a thankless John Lithgow) who are in awe of Tim’s almost supernatural ability to mimic voices. As the plot thickens, Rainer soon finds himself at risk from the killer, who targets him as he gets closer to unraveling the mystery, and while the developments are pretty ludicrous, the movie still somehow remains watchable due to its complete conviction in its stupidity.
From screenwriter Akiva Goldsman, who basically sets his plot in the real world but might as well be set in a science fiction X-Files type of universe where some special humans have otherworldly abilities others can only dream about, Silent Fall might’ve been even more arresting as an erotic thriller where the Liv Tyler character completely crossed over into a sultry vixen, seducing anyone and everyone to get what she wants. The movie, as it is, only teases aspects of that, and while that’s fine, the film should’ve gone even further. Linda Hamilton has a small supporting role as Dreyfuss’s wife (another thankless, pointless role), and some minor plot twists that are revealed (like when it’s discovered that the sheriff was having an affair with the deceased woman) go absolutely nowhere, but should be important. I saw this movie opening weekend when it came out theatrically and thought it was strange, but watching it for this review revealed a whole new can of plot holes I didn’t notice the first time around 30 years ago. I want to like it, and I do appreciate aspects of it (the October / Halloween themes are great), but as a whole, the film is just too bizarre to be acceptable. From director Bruce Beresford.
Mill Creek’s double feature Blu-ray set of these two Morgan Creek Productions titles are oddly matched, and while Imaginary Crimes is the better film of the pair, I would’ve preferred it if Mill Creek had paired Trial By Jury, another Morgan Creek thriller with Silent Fall, as they both came out in 1994. The transfers are adequate, but don’t come with any bonus features. Subtitles and a digital code are also included.
