Morvern Callar

A woman's life is set onto a new path by tragedy and confusion in this offbeat drama from maverick director Lynne Ramsay. Morvern Callar (Samantha Morton) is a woman in her early twenties who wakes up in her flat in a small Scottish town on Christmas morning to a rather unpleasant surprise — her live-in boyfriend has committed suicide, and his body lies on the floor in a pool of blood. She discovers that he has left a short message for her on the screen of his personal computer ("I love you. Be brave."), as well as the text of a novel he had recently completed. Changing the name on the title page to her own, Morvern begins sending the manuscript out to publishers without having actually read it. Eventually, Morvern disposes of her boyfriend's body, scrubs away the evidence of his suicide, and attempts to reintegrate herself with the world, though the shocking events seems to have built a wall between her and those around her, and she is unable to explain what has happened to anyone, even her best friend, Lanna (Kathleen McDermott). Eventually, Morvern draws the last of her boyfriend's money from the bank and treats herself and Lanna to a short vacation in Spain, where they become friendly with a group of hedonistic British expatriates and soon find their friendship stretched to the breaking point. Morvern Callar was based on the novel by Alan Warner; it was originally intended to be Lynne Ramsay's first directorial effort, but she was able to complete her film Ratcatcher before securing funding for this project. — Mark Deming