'Blue Car' finds poetry in grim coming-of-age tale

"Blue Car," a movie that plays like an extended cry in the dark, is a remarkable debut for writer/director Karen Moncrieff. It's a coming-of-age tale acted with such honesty, and directed with such quiet understanding of its troubled characters, that its nearly unrelenting grimness takes on a poetic quality — appropriate for a movie about a teenage poet named Meg (Agnes Bruckner) whose world has spun out of control.

Moncrieff is no stranger to melodrama — she's a former actress who had recurring roles in several daytime soaps in the late '80s and early '90s — and she's given young Meg a life with more than its share of turmoil. Her dad, who left in a blue car after a bitter divorce (we see, in a gorgeously filmed prologue, the light catching the hair on the back of his hand as he drives away), is absent; her mother (Margaret Colin) is overwhelmed and distracted.

Eighteen-year-old Meg, often left to her own devices, must take care of her little sister, Lily (Regan Arnold), who's showing signs of mental illness. And she dreams of winning a high-school poetry contest — and the affections of her teacher Mr. Auster (David Strathairn), a seemingly kind man who encourages her writing, but whose attention to her becomes increasingly inappropriate.

There's none of the gritty digital-video grayness typical of so many first-time indie films here; Moncrieff and director of photography Rob Sweeney used 35mm film to find a wealth of color in Meg's world. (The rust-colored, textured darkness of Meg's family's modest apartment makes Meg's loneliness feel even more poignant; as does the dimness of a beach cabana late in the film.)

And the grace with which "Blue Car" is filmed carries over into its characterizations. Bruckner, in her first significant film role, is a revelation; a beautiful girl whose soft face seems not quite yet formed. Meg's always nervously brushing her hair behind her ears, as if responding to some unheard parental voice. She's a smart kid who makes dumb decisions, as teens often do, but Bruckner's performance draws us in — you feel protective of her. She's got a sweetness and vulnerability reminiscent of a teen Renée Zellweger — they both invite audiences closer, rather than keeping them at arm's length.

(The only false note isn't Bruckner's fault — she was 15 when the movie was made, and while her performance is believable as an 18-year-old, her looks aren't. This makes the scenes with Strathairn even more disturbing, which may or may not have been Moncrieff's intent.)

Strathairn carefully turns what could have been a one-dimensional villain into a sorrowful, fatally weak man; you can see that he at first genuinely wants to help Meg, and where he decides to cross a line.

"Blue Car's" ending seems simplistic — surely no one believes Meg's problems can be solved this easily — and its storytelling occasionally a bit clunky. But it breathes with real-life tension, and likely will be remembered as the movie that introduced the talents of Agnes Bruckner — and Karen Moncrieff — to the world.

Moira Macdonald: 206-464-2725 or mmacdonald@seattletimes.com