It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

In other words,this film is a surreal ride.

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

A guy commits suicide at home. He was an unpublished author, but his first novel is completed. His girlfriend cuts the body into pieces, bury the pieces into the woods and then sends his novel to a publisher, pretending it's her work, even if she's basically illiterate.She gets a fat check for the novel (which was obviously a masterpiece) and lives happily ever after, after a stupid trip to Spain. Or she goes to Spain before getting the money.... I don't remember and really don't care.I would not even discuss how morally repugnant this Morvern character is, with her disposing of her lover's body in such a way. Also stealing a dead person's legacy work is pretty repulsive. However, skipping over the disgusting main character - of which we see far too many in contemporary movies - the storytelling technique was a mix of boring and insufferably pretentious, that made me swear never to watch any other movie made by this director ever again.

Morvern Callar wakes up to find her dead boyfriend. In a disorienting beginning, this tale set in Scotland, grabs the viewer on the strength of the performance of Samantha Morton. Later on, it becomes clear Morvern had nothing to do with the crime since he committed suicide. Her boyfriend has left her a message in the computer with instructions about what to do with the novel he just finished and how to get money from the bank with his ATM card. The shock of finding the dead man in a pool of blood does not deter Morvern for going out with her pal Lanna for a night of pub crawling and wild sex. Lanna, who works with Morvern in a supermarket in a thankless job, is surprised about her friend good fortune in getting some money, although she never questions its provenance. Morvern decides to go on a trip with Lanna to Southern Spain, but before that she must attend to two important things. First, she substitutes her boyfriend's name in the title page of the manuscript, to be mailed to a publishing house, and then, she proceeds to butcher his body and buries him in a desolate part.In Spain it becomes clear the two friends differ in their ways of having a good time. Lanna wants to stay put in the resort hotel, while Morvern decides she must keep going into other areas, as long as her money allows. The two split ways on a desolate part of the country. Morvern, who has contacted the editors of the book she submitted, decides to have a formal chat with them. It becomes clear the publishing of the novel will bring an advance, which Morvern never expected. At the same time, the two editors must deal with the ignorance of a girl that is not what they were expecting, even revealing she works in a supermarket.Lynn Ramsay, the Scottish director, adapter Alan Warner's novel with Liana Dognini. The result is a film that examines a woman of humble origins and the world where she is living. Since the film starts with the dead boyfriend, we never know what kind of relationship they shared. It becomes obvious their affair must have been purely sex driven because otherwise it would be difficult to reconcile how these two ever talked about anything meaningful. Morvern loved to party. Having a good time with her friend Lanna was important to the way she functioned. The trip to Spain brings the two women into conflict. Where Lanna is relaxed, Morvern is restless, not being satisfied in staying put in one single place.Samantha Morton is basically the reason for watching this film. Ms. Morton has talent to spare in conveying a variety of emotions going through her mind through her expressive face. She does little in order to give the viewer an idea of her feelings, or what she is experiencing at any given moment. Her Morvern is one of the best things she has done in films. Kathleen McDermott also surprises with her Lanna. The two actresses make a wonderful team that pays off for Ms. Ramsay.The film was shot in Scotland and Spain by cinematographer Alwin Kuchler. He gets the contrasts between the dreary winter scenes in Scotland and sunny Spain just right. There is an inside joke in the film involving the cameraman. As Lanna and Movern try to pass as German tourists, one of the fellows drinking with them remarks he once knew a German named Alwin Kuchler!

A magnificent but modest film telling an oblique, impressionistic story of a Glaswegian teenager growing up. Samantha Morton oscillates through the film with all the elastic contradictions of an adolescent girl: insecurity, abandon and the curious cocktail of the two when it comes to investigating her own sexuality.At the heart of the story is an act of opportunism as Morvern Callar appropriates a boyfriend's work as her own. This episode is recounted in one of my favourite sequences of all cinema, a flour fight over a dead body. Lynne Ramsay conjures magnificent photography, images as indelible, iconic and mystifying as the Emily Mortimer condiment-sex in Young Adam or Derek Jacobi approaching the canvas as Bacon in Maybury's Love Is The Devil.Needless to say this is not some confusing one-off - a wonderful, Iberian-bleached sequence hints at a conscious horizon of existential catastrophe for Morvern and later sequences of love making have Latin warmth; ardour and bliss in equal, low-key measure. 8/10

Ramsey's second film after the totally impressive Ratcatcher has an air of aimlessness about it. I haven't read the book but the film has only one idea: how does a girl behave when she finds her boyfriend dead with slashed wrists on the floor of their flat? Callar's response is almost post-contemporary - what happens here could simply never have been conceived of more than a few years ago. We follow Samantha Morton (as Callar) through subsequent hazy meanderings with her girlfriend. We assume she is in severe temporary shock at the tragedy - so the creeping suspicion that she is simply a half-wit is disappointing, though all the soft drugs confounds the issue. Life seems impoverished here, as if the city has sucked something out of people. Even death is meaningless.The early part of the film looks dangerously like Catherine Breillat territory - the last thing we need is an original talent like Ramsey to start ripping people off - and I think she was only partly able to haul herself out of the Breillat groove. The tension lapses completely during the second half when Callar goes on holiday in Spain, and there is a silly scene when she meets publishers and passes herself off as the writer of her dead boyfriend's novel that we could have done without.On the whole, very nicely executed though; a fine performance by Morton, a great and atmospheric opening, and some cool music including Aphex Twin make it worth watching. Pity there wasn't more to it.