Michael Shannon directs an adaptation of Brett Neveu’s 2002 play about a mother coping with the fallout after her son murders three of his high school classmates. Janice (Judy Greer) is struggling; she moves through life as if in a haze, unable to let go of her anger and frustration. While her husband (Alexander Skarsgård) has found refuge at a new church, Janice finds it hard to seek solace in her faith despite her pastor’s pleas to heal her wounds by meeting with the mothers of her son’s victims. As Janice ponders what that meeting could achieve for her and her community, Eric LaRue asks audiences to witness the frayed emotional ripples that violent acts can engender.
Anchored by Greer’s deeply arresting performance, Shannon’s directorial debut grapples head-on with frustratingly timely conversations about who deserves our compassion and grace. Standout supporting turns by Tracy Letts and Alison Pill, who capture a subtly unnerving vision of spiritual fanaticism, stress the film's interest in complicating facile views of atonement and forgiveness in light of such tragedies.
源自：https://tribecafilm.com/films/eric-larue-2023
To Elena, existence is an effort—not only does she struggle against her body affected by Parkinson’s, but her daughter has just shown up dead and only she finds the suicide hypothesis implausible. Elena is not a good victim, and doesn’t show signs of having been a selfless mother. She is vulnerable, but also overcome by rage and sorrow, and that stubbornness seems to render her invincible, against all odds. But investigating the reasons for her daughter’s death soon becomes a trip through memory, and, as we’ve known since the time of Greek tragedies, every investigation is, deep down, an investigation about oneself. Elena Knows submerges us in the physical and mental experience of its protagonist and, at the same time, invites us to ask ourselves uncomfortable questions about aging, the complexity of mother-daughter bonds and the weight of those mandates women drag the same way Elena drags her feet.
源自：https://www.mardelplatafilmfest.com/38/en/pelicula/elena-sabe
