Tenderness - Movie Review 2009
Russell Crowe is the biggest name in this bleak tale of teen trauma, but the stars of the show are the two relative newcomers playing troubled adolescents. Eric Kamenko (Jon Foster) has just been released from a juvenile detention centre after murdering his parents, and the excellent Sophie Traub is Lorelei, whose obsession with Eric leads her to track him down on his release.
Australian director John Polson (the creator of short-film festival Tropfest) draws on the conventions of horror, thriller and road-trip movies to create an unsettling portrait of two disaffected teens. Images of fleabag motels and deserted trailers are soundtracked by ominous strings, and Foster effectively transforms his likeable, everyboy face into the hooded countenance of a killer.
Crowe plays Detective Cristofuoro, whose clumsy but dogged pursuit of Eric is, he confesses, his hobby. Crowe is effectively hangdog, shambling but determined. The acting crown goes to Sophie Traub, however. Her physicality captures the slightly lumpen awkwardness of adolescence, and she expertly walks the tricky line between innocence (she has never eaten curry, never seen a Chinese cop) and experience (she's astute at using her sexual power and is in some ways utterly world-weary). The film's climactic scene hinges on her screaming the words "Nothing changes" over and over - a real challenge for a young actress and something that could have been embarrassing or even ludicrous. Traub's extraordinary performance ensures that the moment is simply electrifying.
The film is full of people adrift both literally and metaphorically: a dead girl floats down a river; Cristofuoro navigates his empty life with the help of his interest in Eric; Eric is at the mercy of the tide of his murderous emotions, telling Lorelei desperately, "I have to focus." And poor abused Lorelei, craving the importance of being a murder victim, is perhaps the most adrift of all. A dark, disturbing fable, Tenderness tracks the shifting shoals of evil, power and love with finesse.
