Love Liza

Wilson's wife killed herself. She left a letter and he does not open it; he carries it in his pocket, looks at it and puts it away. He stops going to work, sleeps on the floor at home and starts inhaling petrol. To explain the smell he says he is interested in remote control model planes; then he really enters that world and begins going to competitions. His mother in law wants to know what the letter says. Todd Louiso directs. Philip Seymour Hoffman plays Wilson and Kathy Bates plays the mother in law. The screenplay is by Gordy Hoffman, the actor's brother. It won the screenwriting award at the Sundance film festival in 2002. The narrative is built on grief and offers no consolation; Wilson does not get better and the people around him do not know how to treat him. The strangest thing about it is the comic tone. The model plane world and Wilson's condition inside it produce funny scenes, and the narrative does not separate that comedy from the pain. It is among Philip Seymour Hoffman's sharpest leads; the character is not sympathetic and the performance does not try to fix that. It was made cheaply and shown narrowly; it later became one of the sought out films in Hoffman's work. Who it is for: viewers who like dark American independent film and performance driven drama. Who it is not for: the subject is heavy, the character is exhausting, the narrative does not advance and the ending resolves nothing.