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Personal Velocity
EMAILPRINTMGM / United Artists

Generally favorable reviews
Based on 28 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 5 votes
Read user comments
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Movie Info
Genre(s): Drama
Written by: Rebecca Miller
Directed by: Rebecca Miller
Release Date:
Theatrical: November 22, 2002
DVD: March 18, 2003
Running Time: 86 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: R for brief violence, some strong sexuality and language
Starring Kyra Sedgwick, Parker Posey, Fairuza Balk, Tim Guinee, Wallace Shawn, Ben Shenkman, Patti D'Arbanville, and John Ventimiglia (narrator)
Based on Rebecca Miller's acclaimed book of short stories, this film tells three tales of women who have reached a turning point in their lives.
Also On Metacritic
FILM: The Ballad of Jack and Rose
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt
Miller shows terrific talent as a director with a sharp eye for images, a keen ear for dialogue, and a refreshing willingness to take storytelling risks.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
A no-frills docu-Dogma plainness, yet Miller lingers on invisible, nearly psychic nuances, leaping into digressions of memory and desire. She boxes these women's souls right open for us.
Read Full Review >Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
Everything and everyone is observed sharply, succinctly and indelibly.
The New York Times A.O. Scott
The cumulative effect is that of watching misspent lives disintegrate before your eyes. Ms. Miller's canny accomplishment is a triumph, giving the material weight and heart. This is one of the finest pictures of the year.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
The actors are gifted at establishing character with just a few well-chosen strokes (as a short story writer must also be able to do). We learn as much about each of these women in half an hour as we learn about most movie characters in two hours.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Stephen Hunter
Embraces reality, humanity and compassion, as leavened by wisdom and wit.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Manohla Dargis
Miller's strength in her stories and in the film is in her ability to push past ideology and get right down to the nitty-gritty of desire.
Read Full Review >Variety Dennis Harvey
Impresses with the originality of its observation, storytelling techniques and filmmaking style.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Desson Thomson
The movie's much more than a castor-oil feminist message about self-realization, bad old Dad and all those awful men. The performances take care of that.
Read Full Review >Dallas Observer Bill Gallo
Moviegoers bewailing the absence of literacy and shallowness of character they usually get for their seven bucks need look no further than this fluent and satisfying triptych for a source of hope.
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian Kim Morgan
It's not afraid to be funny, tragic and decidedly female.
ReelViews James Berardinelli
The acting is uniformly excellent, with Kyra Sedgwick and Fairuza Balk in particular deserving to be singled out for praise.
Read Full Review >New York Post Megan Lehmann
Succinct yet detailed storytelling, evocative cinematography (by Ellen Kuras) and arresting central performances add up to a trio of engaging character portraits.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen
A drama that's often insightful and occasionally powerful but is still, at heart, a piece of television and not a work of film.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey
Has the confessional intimacy of a video diary and performances to match, particularly those of Kyra Sedgwick and Parker Posey.
Read Full Review >Film Threat Merle Bertrand
An intensely moving and oftentimes haunting film; a compelling look at the unique life paths of three totally different women.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Ken Fox
All three actresses are simply dazzling, particularly Balk, who's finally been given a part worthy of her considerable talents.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Jami Bernard
The first two stories are so well-drawn you hate to leave them. But Miller's femaleempowerment anthology carries a smart whiff of other literary looks at ordinary, extraordinary women, such as Grace Paley's "Enormous Changes at the Last Minute."
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Mark Caro
The movie's title refers to a comment about how people grow at their own rates. Miller's movie has its moments of impressive velocity, but it never quite takes off.
Read Full Review >Village Voice Laura Sinagra
Miller's women share the affliction of scars left by dominating fathers. But the stories lean toward self-importance, and used verbatim in heavy voice-over, they register as a parody of spareness. Posey is the only one who has fun puncturing the solemnity, turning the real surreal in a softer version of her usual attack.
Read Full Review >Salon.com Jeff Stark
The thing I took away from that opening was that it was small, and looked beautiful. There was some technique and a little confusion. It didn't seem to have a conflict all plotted out and neatly resolved. The thing I didn't like is that the rest of the movie did.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader Richard M. Porton
Rebecca Miller's second feature shows her to be a careful but somewhat schematic scenarist; her shaky directorial skills are partly offset by her skill at eliciting convincing portrayals from actors.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly Ella Taylor
Liberal use is made of freeze-frame and flashbacks as a kind of emotional chronology, yet it's precisely in this regard that the characters feel tentative and half-formed. I'm still trying to figure out why this perfectly serviceable movie won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance last year.
Read Full Review >Seattle Post-Intelligencer Paula Nechak
The actors navigate tough characters through emotional mayhem with such intense determination it's a shame they're undercut by the intrusive voice-over.
Read Full Review >Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman
The writing is self-consciously literary in a way that probably worked better on the page.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle
A hit-and-miss affair, or, to be more precise, a miss (story one), hit (story two) and break even (story three) affair.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Ty Burr
This isn't a movie -- it's an author in love with the sound of her own voice.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias
Taken together, the stories are a watershed of feminist clichés, composed of half-hour sections that are too tidy by half, and overlaid with writerly voiceovers that suggest an author too enamored of her own narration. But one salvageable piece emerges in the middle: a sharp and acerbically funny segment that seems written specifically for Parker Posey.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 7.4 (out of 10) based on 5 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Brenda C. gave it a 3:
What a disappointment. The cast was exellent, but let down by a poor script. Terribly self indulgent and very unsatifactory. So sad, as it had the potential to be so much better. Thankfully I had complimentary tickets so it cost nothing, but what a waste of time!
Chad S. gave it a 10:
Was 2002 some sort of watershed year for female directors of independent film? Nicole Holofcener's "Lovely & Amazing", Jill Sprecher's "13 Conversations About One Thing", Christine Jeff's "Rain", and now Rebecca Miller's "Personal Velocity". All of these films deserve serious thought when putting together a "Best of 2002" list. I almost skipped this invigorating movie because the critic in my region panned it. She suggested we should skip the movie and read the book. Do yourself a favor and do both. Like children, don't play favorites. All three stories are wonderfully written, acted, photographed, and directed. Most importantly, this is not a chick flick. A bad film with female protagonists is a chick flick. Like "Beaches".
Lampert D. gave it a 6:
Didn't really work for me, although most of the reviews I read led me to believe it would.
Michael H. gave it a 10:
Nuanced, subtle portraits. Sharp, original view of topics that you think are well-worn. See it!
