Review:
"Where is Kyra?"
Release Date: April 13, 2018
Running Time: 98 minutes Michelle Pfeiffer completes the comeback she started with last year’s The Wizard of Lies, mother! and Murder on the Orient Express with Where is Kyra?, a haunting psychology study in economic despair that features Pfeiffer at her compelling. Written and directed by Mother of George’s Andrew Dosunmu, Where is Kyra? opens with Pfeiffer’s titular bookkeeper continuing her two-year job hunt while caring for her sick mother, Ruth (Suzanne Shepherd). When Ruth dies, Kyra no longer can rely on her mother’s social security checks to keep a roof over her head. So Kyra commits fraud in an effort to put a buck or two in her pocket. Kyra’s decision also threatens her relationship with her new boyfriend, Doug (played by Kiefer Sutherland), who finally has found stability in his life. Bleakly lighting Where is Kyra? to reflected his subject’s dark state of mind, Dosunmu depicts Kyra’s descent into desperation in a deliberate manner that ensures he generates empathy for her. Kyra is not a bad person; she is shown doing everything she can to get a meaningful job that would pay her a living wage. She also is willing to do whatever it takes to make a buck or two, from handing out flyers on a street corner to selling the furniture in her Brooklyn apartment. Dosunmu makes it clear that Kyra is nothing more than a product of her humiliating circumstances. While Dosunmu does not absolves Kyra of her actions, he is more intrigued by the impact of unemployment on a person’s psyche and how being broke can motivate them to betray their moral code. He also brings an air of mystery to the proceedings that cannot be explained without spoiling things. Pfeiffer completely loses herself in Kyra’s downward spiral. She pushes aside Kyra’s pride to reveal a woman whose survival instincts can take her as far as events can catch up with her and has the potential to harm those who care for her. But Pfeiffer refuses to pass judgment on Kyra, recognizing that the anguish that grips her—coupled with the age discrimination and lost opportunities that inform her job search—drives her to take such extreme measures. Where is Kyra? places you in her shoes and dares you to ask what you would do if you were Kyra. Would you go where Kyra must go in order to endure? Robert Sims Aired: April 12, 2018 Web site: https://www.facebook.com/WhereisKyra/ |
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