Crossed Over – directed by Bobby Roth — a novelist who has lost her son in a hit-and-run becomes friends with a notorious murderess in prison. 89 minutes color 2002.
* * * *
It but touches on things. How could it have done otherwise? I don’t know. The hell-realm of Karla Faye Tucker would be something worth looking at, but instead of going inside, we skip along on the stones of her personal history, but we never fall in, for the script misses itself. Very sad about her, good that she had a spiritual emergence. And then was executed. That was enough. The Diane Keaton character who persistently visits Tucker after her own son is killed by a hit-and-run driver is also given the once-over. Diane Keaton is an actor of genius; her recognition scene early in the picture is stunning. Maury Chaykin is an actor of the very first rank, and he offers a lot to Keaton here; he brings a sense of her reality in him, and so we do believe they are well married. But what we are given, instead of the collusion of Keaton and Jennifer Jason Leigh as Tucker, in a mysterious joining, is pat. The tears are pat. The sorrows are pat. The rapprochements are pat. Everything is routine. It is as though history must be honored over truth; as though this were not a drama but a documentary. Jennifer Jason Leigh is well cast as the murderess. She is an actor of great brilliance, whose career has collapsed because of a failure of voice production and trained actor’s proper articulation. One never understand the words she is saying. Nonetheless she is perfectly cast here, for the part needs an actress of no personal appeal whatsoever, and such she is. The film is well-directed and very well filmed. The prison mis-en-scene is uncannily right. But where is the power of a real story?
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