Click Here For Our Interview with Famke Janssen

Turn the River

Review By: Dan Deevy
DanDeevy@TheCinemaSource.com

Small films with big name talent is what it’s all about for me in this movie reviewing game and no one is more consistent with bringing to life these little gems than model turned actress turned super star Famke Janssen. Sure you may know her best as a smokin’ hot Bond girl or the amazingly powerful Jean Grey from the X - Men film series, but you haven’t seen her true acting chops until you’ve seen her in a low budget independent film tackling a complex and interesting character.

Last year she was amazing as Allegra Marshall in the film The Treatment playing a society widow who falls for her sons private school teacher. This year she re-teams with her Treatment co-star Chris Eigeman in the pool hustling card shark film Turn the River. Eigeman both writes and directs this very impressive feature film debut.

Famke plays Kailey Sullivan a woman with a troubled past who made the ultimate sacrifice to escape that past. After becoming pregnant at a very young age, her child’s grandmother, a powerful socialite played by Lois Smith, offers her a deal to avoid prison time for running an illegal card game; all she had to do was agree to never see her son after he was born. With very few options Kailey agrees. It’s now years later and Kailey has continued gambling making money in small card games and hustling pool throughout the New York City area but all the while has managed to secretly see her son thanks to arranged meetings by a local pool hall owner and Kailey’s friend Mr. Quinette played by Rip Torn.

After discovering that her son Gulley (Jaymie Dornan) is being mistreated by his father, Kailey finally decides that it’s time for them to run away together to some place new to start over. To that end she arranges several pool games to win the money she needs to get them there and that’s where the heart of the story really lies, in her struggle to do whatever it takes to get her son back and hopefully make up for all of the mistakes she made in the past.

Very appropriate comparisons are of course going to be made to the classic film The Hustler, as a great deal of this story does take place in a pool hall, but that’s really where the similarities end. The main difference between the two is that Turn the River isn’t about playing pool. It’s definitely the main device used in the film and