September 27–October 4, 2001
movie shorts
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This beautifully photographed drama by Hans Petter Moland focuses on Kaiser (Lena Headey), whose mother is dying in a hospital in Scotland. The mother’s last wish is for a visit from Kaiser and Kaiser’s father, Thomas (Breaking the Waves’ Stellan Skarsgård), but the journey is complicated by Thomas being the kind of falling-down drunk who can’t get through an hour without taking a swig of whiskey. Kaiser has her own issues to deal with — from emotional impenetrability to an addiction to cocaine — and resents her father’s past and present failures. The lessons father and daughter learn from the journey aren’t new, but that’s what you get for taking on such an eternal set of themes.