Where is Kyra?

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Where is Kyra?

As reported by Dollyforme

 

This is one VERY creepy movie. I found this movie to be really dark and unrelentingly despairing. In “Where Is Kyra?” Pfeiffer is cast powerfully against type, divested of her trademark glamor and shine to play a woman who, when she finds herself at the end of her rope, stops trying to climb and fashions a noose.

Kyra has hit a rough patch in a phase of life where she should be enjoying stability. Instead of approaching her own impending golden years in a warm home with a sizable nest egg, she finds herself absent her husband (now divorced) and full-time job (two years laid off), living with her infirm and elderly mother. The two scrape by on paltry pension checks, which are a trial for the old woman to cash on hobbling excursions to the bank.

They're such a trial that it’s no shock when, after one such arduous trip, she quietly dies in the apartment, leaving Kyra to navigate the wreckage of her life solo – and without the pension checks that were sustaining her. Michelle Pfeiffer stars in "Where is Kyra?" (Photo: Falco Ink)

A friendship struck up with Doug (Kiefer Sutherland), a considerate and lonely neighbor, starts to turn into something more after a few commiserating drinks at the bar. He has his own checkered past, but one he’s seemingly surmounted through sheer will and a desire to do good. Their connection could offer Kyra an escape hatch, or at least a relief valve, if desperation weren’t already driving her to extremes from which she might not be able to recover.

“Where Is Kyra?” is ratcheting agony to watch. You almost have to peek through your fingers when Kyra tries to cash a check, buys a rum and Coke on her credit card and overturns her purse for spare change at the register. And that’s only the first phase of impoverishment, before the phone line is cut and the heat turned off. A horror-movie dread sets in. The monster here hasn’t got fangs or razor-sharp claws, but a collection notice.

Pfeifer may be stripped of her luminosity, but she is vivid onscreen. The camera lingers on her, often in intimate close-ups. Complicated, emotionally wrought conversations play out with only her drawn face in the frame, leaving us to imagine the other person’s reactions based solely on her subtle changes in expression. It's a heavy load, and one that she bears with grace.

Director Andrew Dosunmu is enamored of his photographer’s eye. He’s not shy to let a shot linger if it looks good, even past a scene’s dramatic efficacy. Often, that comes at a price, with compositions that are more captivating than characters. “Where Is Kyra?” is just as technically confident, if narratively less successful, than Dosunmu’s well-regarded 2013 film “Mother of George.” In his follow-up he’s gone even more interior and minimalist. One admires the daring even if the result feels slight.

Except when Pfeiffer’s performance is the focus. Nothing feels slight about that.

In “Where Is Kyra?,” Pfeiffer does nicely with her biggest role in years, albeit in a very small-scaled movie. She plays the title part, a divorced, out-of-work woman who must face brittle realities when her mother (Suzanne Shepherd), whom she’s been caretaking, suddenly dies.

At first, Kyra’s rounds appear ordinary. She deals with her mother’s Brooklyn apartment and scrambles to find work.

A chance meeting with another tenant (Kiefer Sutherland, in sympathetic form) leads to a tentative relationship. But Kyra’s got a secret.

Director Andrew Dosunmu’s style, drenched in dark, moody compositions, suggests something heavy is going on. He and gifted cinematographer Bradford Young (of the atmosphere-heavy “Arrival”) make every shot look like a burnished painting. It’s a fitting approach for a character who becomes increasingly weighed down by circumstances.

“Where Is Kyra?” isn’t so much about Kyra’s fling with criminal behavior as it is about a world in which a decent person can fall from safety to destitution in just a few weeks’ time. Kyra’s behavior stems from her panic about scraping together enough money to get through the week — not because she’s bad, but because things have gone badly.

The film doesn’t always click, but Pfeiffer is up to the challenge of animating this outcast — at various times we see Kyra’s face in unsparing close-up, and Pfeiffer lets the exhaustion and desperation show through. This performance bodes well for an entirely new phase of a former superstar’s career.

Michelle Pfeiffer does a strong starring turn as a divorced woman whose life goes into a tailspin after her mother dies. The movie is about how short a distance lies between getting by and being destitute, and Pfeiffer delivers an unsparing character study. With Kiefer Sutherland.

Anyway, should you see the movie? If you like LOW budget, VERY creepy and DARK movies and can see it on the cheap – sure, worth a rental for sure.

Comments

I admit that dark  and creepy movies are not really my cookie, but Michelle Pfeiffer I have in high respect. So this is going to be a tough one. But one thingis for sure, II very much enjoyed your reading your review.

 

Thanks you, Dollyforme, for another great review!!

 

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