Unstuck in time

Bonnie Warner as Andrea (click to enlarge)

“How long will it take before it makes me feel any differently?” asks Elliot (Zach Selwyn) about one of the substances he ingests throughout Damage Done (2008). Less about addiction than loss, this is a jarring new film written and directed by Roy Burdine, taking a radical departure from his day job as supervising director of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles animated series.

    A rough and unflinching barebones production shot on high definition video, it begins with intimations of Jonathan Demme’s Something Wild (the doughy everyman shanghaied by a sexy nonconformist) and, strangely enough, Edgar G. Ulmer’s Detour. Indeed, Burdine has been graced with an exceptionally talented and dedicated cast of actors, and Bonnie Warner’s intense hitchhiker — Andrea — initially invites comparisons with Ann Savage’s psychotic fireball in Ulmer’s old chestnut.

    Rather than rely on tried and true formulas, Burdine gambles with a screenplay as intricate and unpredictable as the characters who inhabit it. Junkies, transients, drifters, the human fallout from wrecked homes — they’re not a pretty bunch. But Mr. Selwyn’s Elliot is a quietly simmering changeling whose seemingly involuntary connection with danger masks a deep-rooted death wish. Buff and severe, Ms. Warner has the fierce determination of a pit bull and the body of a lap dancer. As Andrea evolves into a series of altering personas, Warner shines in one of the most memorable performances I’ve seen lately.

    Filmed mostly out in the desert and inside cramped rooms and apartments, the conflict of expanse and constraint simply bounces off of Elliot’s unspoken grief. Beyond the performances and inventive lighting and photography, however, the screenplay’s the thing. Damage Done hovers between the suburban ideal of marriage and family to the decadence of drug addiction and low rent hedonism. Frank and honest, it’s a portrait that’s touching and artful.

Official website

Cast & credits @ IMDb

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