Artist 35 Shots Of Rum

French director Claire Denis is one of the most magical filmmakers in the world, a moody, intuitive artist whose best movies—Beau Travail and Friday Night among them—have a pure, elliptical quality that transcends the page, as if she’s flying without a screenplay. Denis’ last feature, The Intruder, pushed that elliptical style into out-and-out incoherence, but she finds her footing beautifully with 35 Shots Of Rum, a film grounded a bit more in nuts-and-bolts character work than usual. It’s a story still told in pieces, without the narrative spoon-feeding that generally carries an audience through a movie. But once all those pieces fall into place, the film evolves into a simple, intimate, acutely emotional portrait of a family reaching a painful crossroads.

Updated 11/23/2009