London Kills Me

The Cineplex Odeon chain is competing with the Tower Theater this weekend, bringing in a pair of downbeat art films during a week when there are no major studio releases.

"Adam's Rib" is a Russian film, a low-key look at the oppressed lives of three generations of women living in a cramped apartment. "London Kills Me" is an English film by Hanif Kureishi, making his directing debut after writing acclaimed screenplays for director Stephen Frears' "Sammy and Rosie Get Laid" and "My Beautiful Laundrette."

— "ADAM'S RIB" is a heartfelt, if occasionally claustrophobic melodrama about three women who have a history of failed romance and don't seem to be doing any better with the men currently in their lives.

Nina, who is approaching 50, is the frustrated matriarch of the home. She is hesitant to get involved with a smitten suitor, though she would like to. Essentially, she has lost confidence after two failed marriages.

Meanwhile, her two daughters, each from a different marriage, are having their own problems. Fifteen-year-old Nastya has a layabout boyfriend whom she treats indifferently — and sometimes with outright animosity (ultimately, we learn that she has a reason). And her older sister Lida, a professional woman, is having a fling with her married boss. She's in love, of course, while he is a womanizing pig.

Nina's bedridden mother also lives with her daughter and granddaughters, ringing a bell overhead whenever she's hungry, needs a change of bed linens or wants to watch her favorite television program.

The film takes a quiet, slice-of-life approach to the lives of these women, contrasting each one's individual lives outside the home with their emotion-filled existence in a stifled atmosphere.

Inna Churikova's interpretation of Nina is by far the film's best-drawn character — and in some ways, this might have been a better picture if it had simply focused on her.

Finally, the film culminates with a birthday dinner (for Grandma, though she is confined to another room), which includes Nina's two ex-husbands and her would-be boyfriend. That final scene takes on a life of its own, with a chilling mix of angst and humor, so that it feels like a play that saves its best moments for the climactic confrontation that is full of personal revelations. This sequence gives the film an extra level of texture and brings the ideas all together.

Still, this is subtle, quiet drama and patience is required to some degree. There are ample rewards, however.