Consider the British import “Pure” as Molly Parker’s audition tape for winning the role of an addict in “Deadwood.”
Whether an aristocrat stuck in a lewd mining town on the HBO series, or a single mom stuck in London public housing, Parker is gifted at playing a junkie.
There’s something haunted and vacantly sweet about the way she stares through her opiate haze. She seems nearly harmless, except to herself, and that tumbling-heroine look makes us all want to save her.
Parker and Harry Eden, the boy who plays her precocious-by-necessity son, elevate “Pure” from a tedious cautionary tale to a wrenching drama. Her character means well and acts so damnably opposite, and the boy tries so hard to replace her as the family’s resident adult, we are compelled to see how it all finishes.
They are so good, in fact, at nearing their wits’ end, that the problem with “Pure” is exactly how it all concludes. Parker and Eden make you believe heroin and crack are pure destroyers of hope, so any upbeat notes attempted later may ring hollow.
Parker plays Mel, struggling with a 10-year-old and a 6-year-old after her husband’s death. Helpful Paul (Eden) races through town with Mum’s medicine, but a gut-piercing scene quickly brings us the cruel truth: Mum’s fix may come in a hypodermic, but Paul has to cook it in a spoon first.
Family friend Lenny (David Wenham) tries to assist, really he does, dropping off powder packets filled with more “gear.” With friends like these, who needs an executioner?
Paul slowly realizes, as his mom slips from high-functioning to semi-conscious, that the neighborhood’s junkies have invaded his own house. While Paul, in over his head, struggles to stave off disaster, he’s also caught in a tug of war with grandparents who want to take over.
Parker’s dreaminess has long served her well, letting her characters get away with the most unseemly acts without horrifying her audience. Even in the critically acclaimed, little-seen “Kissed,” she could make a young woman overly fascinated by corpses seem nearly sane, and certainly above contempt. In “Deadwood,” she anesthetized herself daily against the South Dakota mud and murder, but was always the most appealing person in the saloon.
“Pure,” which debuted at the 2002 Toronto Film Festival, is also a chance to see Keira Knightley before “Pirates of the Caribbean” took her to the stratospheres of stardom. She does a nice job here as a teenage addict not quite as sweet as Mel, and infinitely more stupid.
Staff writer Michael Booth can be reached at 303-820-1686 or mbooth@denverpost.com.
“Pure”
***
NOT RATED, with extensive drug use, profanity and adult situations|1 hour, 36 minutes|DRAMA|Directed by Gillies MacKinnon, written by Allison Hume; starring Molly Parker, David Wenham, Harry Eden, Geraldine McEwan and Keira Knightley |Opens today at Starz FilmCenter.
