SU Grad Done Good

Vera Farmiga was in my ETS 226 class in the spring semester of my first year at Syracuse. Therefore, I'm very excited to see her in movies. Imagine, I'm now one degree closer to Matt Damon! If only she appeared in films in which she had meaty roles, or in flicks I liked.

5) Never Forever (July 30, on Netflix instant viewing. The No. 4 movie for July was the previously reviewed The Dark Knight.)

Never Forever can’t quite overcome its squeamish concept befitting a soap opera: Woman’s husband is infertile, he freaks out, she secretly pays another man to get her knocked up, she and sperm donor fall for each other. Vera Farmiga, perhaps best known as the shrink in The Departed, elevates Gina Kim’s tale of marital and maternal desperation as a tightly wound New York suburban housewife looking to placate her Korean Christian in-laws with the heir her husband (David McInnis) cannot provide. Farmiga’s cornflower blues pierce the screen with agony as Sophie tries to save her suicidal husband, with “all-business” numbness while propositioning Korean illegal immigrant Jihah (Ha Jung-woo) to father a child, and with unexpected tenderness as she and Jihah develop feelings for each other and the unborn baby. Farmiga’s intensity and heartbreak nearly save Never Forever from its more awkward moments. Alas, Kim tacks on an unrealistic, pat ending to her complicated story, as if trying to make everything more palatable to the mainstream at the last minute.