Rebecca Miller, daughter of Arthur Miller, wrote and directed these three portraits of women making their escape from men and attempting to forge a life of their own. This may explain the rather self-conscious and literary voiceover that accompanies the stories. However, she has a considerable talent as a film-maker.
Personal Velocity is shot digitally, but betrays few signs of that medium's usual roughness of expression, thanks to the camerawork of Ellen Kuras. It is also directed with a subtlety that makes sure none of the stories goes in an obvious direction.
In the first, Kyra Sedgwick plays a married woman with three children and a brutal husband. When she finally plucks up the courage to leave, an old school friend puts her up and she becomes a waitress at the local diner. Her freedom isn't easy, but it is better than anything she has encountered before. In the second and best episode, Parker Posey is a magazine editor, wracked by both her ambition and her libido. Her nice, steady husband no longer satisfies her and she has to leave him. In the last story, Fairuza Bulk runs away from her Haitian boyfriend, refusing to tell him she is pregnant, and hooks up with a badly damaged young man with little to commend him as a partner.
Each episode seems to revolve round the women's fathers, either violent, driven or lacking in affection. These women, each from a different class, are striving for a way out, not only of their present situations, but from their childhood past too. The acting, especially that of Posey, is highly observant, and the production design has all the precision we need to understand exactly where these characters are coming from.
The second story could have made a feature by itself, since it is by far the most sophisticated of the three. The whole, however, proves that Miller deserved her Grand Jury award at Sundance, largely because her understated work refuses obvious melodrama and thus digs deeper than most.
· Screening tonight at Odeon West End 2, London WC2. Further screenings on November 12 and 17. Box office: 020-7928 3232.