"My friends call me Loose." It's not the happiest line in neophyte writer-director Joey Lauren Adams' script for "Come Early Morning"; indeed, it's all the more dismaying, given that just about every other choice Adams makes in this uninsistently winning movie is astute, assured and tender. The offbeat leading lady of Kevin Smith's "Chasing Amy" a decade ago, Adams stays off camera this time out. And that, too, is an admirable decision. It's given another often carelessly dismissed actress the chance to shine, and to pointedly redeem a grievously misspent career.
That would be Ashley Judd. In 1993's "Ruby in Paradise" she quietly conquered audiences and, especially, critics with her portrayal of a young Southern woman who drives away from an Appalachian dead end to seek new options on the Florida coast. Whether through bad luck, bad judgment or a mix thereof, "Ruby" was pretty much the last good movie this daughter of Nashville-Hollywood royalty did.
It's hard not to see "Come Early Morning" as Ruby's narrative picked up a decade or so down the road. This time she's an Arkansan named Lucy, with a day job finding ways to cut costs for her contractor boss (Stacy Keach) and a nighttime penchant for getting drunk and going to bed with guys she has no interest in remembering. A lot of that has to do with the sorry marital history of her parents - mom (Diane Ladd), long unhappily remarried, and dad (Scott Wilson), living on his own with a bottle and the memory of having once played guitar with Chet Atkins. But some of it is Lucy's own problem with recognizing what she's worth.
This may sound familiar, even formulaic. But in movies it's what the filmmakers do with the material, and how they do it, that matters. Adams seeks neither to prettify nor to condescend to her characters, the unremarkable small town where they live or the rituals that comprise life there. Consequently, we begin to find latent, homely fascination in every motel or tavern parking lot; the ways street, curb and driveway merge into one another at a particular corner; and the revelations of character and intelligence lurking in the sardonic, backing-and-filling pattern of conversations among people who mostly are a good deal smarter than we expected them to be.
Adams has corralled some first-rate acting talent - others in the cast include Laura Prepon, Pat Corley, Tim Blake Nelson and Ray McKinnon - and they reward her with small jewels of nuance and feeling. Jeffrey Donovan is excellent as the new guy in town who shapes up as Lucy's best prospect for a long-term commitment, and a player I couldn't identify from the end credits is marvelous as a curiously ethical pickup who does right by Lucy just when she, and we, expect nothing of the sort. And oh yes, Ashley Judd takes her swing and knocks this one out of the park.
So is this a review of a movie at some local multiplex? Nope. Premièred at Sundance early in 2006 and opened in New York in November to appreciative notices, "Come Early Morning" never made it to theater screens in most towns. So come March 20, you can make the acquaintance of one of last year's most satisfying films ... on DVD.
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