Movie Review - 'Stuck'

Stuck

Starring Mena Suvari and Stephen Rea
Directed by Stuart Gordon
Rated R

Late one night, a nurse with a promotion dangling over her head is driving home from a night of celebration, takes her eyes off the wheel, and hits a man walking across the street.

It's the story of Chante Mallard, a Texas woman who, in 2001, smashed into Gregory Biggs, a homeless man, drove him with him lodged in her windshield, parked the car in the garage, went upstairs and had sex, then checked on the victim over the course of the next two days, although Biggs was dead within hours of the incident.

It's such a bizarre story that it naturally makes for a great screenplay, if you change things up a bit. And that's what writer-director Stuart Gordon has done with Stuck. He has left the incident in tact - right down to the post-accident sex - but then he has built his story backwards to that point and from the crash forward.

Mena Suvari plays the nurse, and she's a pretty typical young woman trying to make ends meet. Outside of a little reliance on ecstasy, there's no reason to paint her as a bad character or even one that exhibits poor judgment, morally speaking, before the collision.

Stephen Rea, the great, sorrowful Irish actor, is perfect casting as the homeless man. He's fallen on hard times, had just been evicted from his low-rent apartment, and this was his first night on the streets. We fell sympathy for his plight even before he's jammed under somebody's windshield.

The characters take interesting turns after the accident: The nurse who chooses not to help a dying man and a man with nothing to live for clinging onto his every breath. If nothing else, Stuck is a strong character study with a few really good scenes. Rea gives his best performance in a while as a man who only has himself to rely on, and Suvari has only been better once, in American Beauty.

As for the morality play within Stuck, we'd all like to think that we'd immediately drive to the hospital in a situation like that. Chante Mallard probably thought the same thing, too, once upon a time.

I guess we'll find out how she'd handle it after the fact in 2028, when Mallard is available for parole.