Think Of Me (2011)

Directed by: Bryan Wizemann

The state of your car says a lot about you in the movies.  In Think Of Me, Alice’s car is metonymically related to her life and, as the movie opens, her car won’t start.  

Alice (Lauren Ambrose) and daughter Sunny (Audrey P. Scott) live with mutt Casey in a low-rent apartment in an even less-than-usually appealing part of Las Vegas.  Alice’s life is ratcheting downhill, one notch at a time, but while director Bryan Wizemann elicits sympathy for her plight, he does not portray her simplistically as a victim.  

She is at least a partial contributor to her own woes, whether it is her need to have a cigarette in her mouth at all times, and her preference for cabs over buses – and then her increasingly desperate schemes for boosting her income (which include some very half-hearted attempts at amateur prostitution, or getting involved in dodgy dealings suggested by colleagues at work).  When she loses her job, she is forced to consider whether there is any part of her future she won’t mortgage for her present.

Wizemann gets fantastic performances from Alice and Sunny, avoiding histrionics and sentimentality and achieving considerable believability.  If at times the limited budget shows in the narrow range of camera angles he can deploy, this is a minor criticism.  Powerful and engaging.