Long Time Since . The Boston Phoenix . 12-14-98

Long Time Since

DIRECTED BY: Jay Anania

REVIEWED: 12-14-98

Remember Lindsay Crouse in House of Games? Or Greta Scacchi in The Player? Coldly beautiful, castratingly aloof, Paulina Porizkova in Long Time Since makes them look like a couple of surfer chicks. In ex-Bostonian Jay Anania's second feature, the ex-supermodel plays Diane Thwaite, a woman haunted by a violent event that occurred on New Year's Eve 24 years ago. Now a successful artist (but a repressed, uptight one who draws botanical specimens for scientific journals), Diane becomes increasingly distracted as sensory fragments of that night begin to coalesce. She leaves messages on someone's (boyfriend's? therapist's?) voicemail describing dreams full of symbols; she ponders whether that horrific night in 1972 was merely a dream she had. But Diane's search (including an unconvincing session with a hypnotherapist) leads her to the brooding, solitary man (Julian Sands, less affected -- and thereby handsomer -- than usual) whose wife and infant daughter disappeared that night.

Anania's command of image and sound is impressive, with lilting a cappella strains of "Auld Lang Syne" punctuating Diane's dreams and snippets of memory. His clean, simple, often arresting mise en scéne conjures Mapplethorpe or Derek Jarman and sometimes resembles what a bloodless, sexless David Lynch might see. But the acting, perhaps intentionally, is excruciatingly soulless -- which makes this film about memory one that is memorable for the wrong reasons.

--Peg Aloi

Film Vault Suggested Links
Night and the City
Heaven's Prisoners
Kiss the Girls

Rate this Film
If you don't want to vote on a film yet, and would like to know how others voted, leave the rating selection as "Vote Here" and then click the Cast Vote button.