Movie Review: Winter Passing

Winter Passing is a slow moving independent film made by Adam Rapp. It stars Zoey Deschanel as Reese Holden. Reese is a struggling actress living in New York, her writer parents live in Michigan. Her father (Ed Harris) is a reclusive novelist who has not produced anything for years and her mother, also a writer, has passed away recently. Reese is not particularly close to either parent and is happier on her own away from everything. Enter a literary agent.. who offers Reese a lot of money for a series of letters written between her parents, which has been bequeathed to her by her mother. She makes the trip back to Michigan to see if she can get the letters back and discovers her father is living with 2 other people, a grad student and a musician (Will Farrell). The rest of the movie is about what happens when you have been away from home too long and return to someone who is so familiar to you yet is a complete stranger to your current life.

While reading other reviews for this movie a lot of people seem to hate Reese's character, I for the most part found her character absolutely fascinating. She lives in her own bubble and empathizes in strange ways, sure she might not be entirely happy but she is real. I do not agree that Reese is an asshole and she becomes a good person, that is such an incorrect & simplistic take on the movie that it takes away from the beauty of this movie. Zooey Deschanel is spectacularly good in the movie, as is Ed Harris and Will Farrell (who should do more non-comedic roles). If you liked watching 'You can count on me', I highly recommend this gem. It is slow moving and there are 4 main characters in the movie and there is a lot conveyed through unsaid words.