Passion Fish

With his trademark emphasis on character development and dialogue, writer/director John Sayles tells the story of May-Alice Culhane (Mary McDonnell), a New York soap opera actress left paralyzed by a car accident. As the film opens, she lies in a hospital bed, confused and scared, watching her own ...more

Character and dialogue are the driving forces in writer-director John Sayles' movies. In Passion Fish, Sayles delivers a quality screenplay, and Mary McDonnell and Alfre Woodard do his script justice with some of the most accomplished work of their careers. McDonnell -- who also stood out in the director's Matewan -- brings surprising originality to the role of the haggard, self-pitying accident victim, and Woodard never becomes a stereotypical provider of "tough love." Vondie Curtis-Hall and ...more