independent
Independent or Independents may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups
* Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s
* Independ ...
drama
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance: a play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the dramatic mode has b ...
film, written and directed by Elisabeth Subrin. The story concerns Anna Baskin (
Maggie Siff
Maggie Siff (born June 21, 1974) is an American actress. Her most notable television roles have included department store heiress Rachel Menken Katz on the AMC drama '' Mad Men'', Dr. Tara Knowles on the FX drama '' Sons of Anarchy'' for which ...
), a successful yet burnt out actress who absconds from a mind-numbing television role in LA to reinvent herself in
NYC
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
, confronting the past and the people she left behind in the process.
Cast
*
Maggie Siff
Maggie Siff (born June 21, 1974) is an American actress. Her most notable television roles have included department store heiress Rachel Menken Katz on the AMC drama '' Mad Men'', Dr. Tara Knowles on the FX drama '' Sons of Anarchy'' for which ...
as Anna Baskin
*
Cara Seymour
Cara Seymour (born 6 January 1964) is a British actress from Essex, England. She has appeared in films such as ''You've Got Mail'', '' American Psycho'', '' Adaptation'', '' Dancer in the Dark'', ''Gangs of New York'', '' Hotel Rwanda'', '' Th ...
as Kate
*
John Ortiz
John Ortiz (born May 23, 1968) is an American actor. He is known for his antagonist role as Arturo Braga in ''Fast & Furious'' (2009) and ''Fast & Furious 6'' (2013), and Clyde in ''Jack Goes Boating'' (2010), which earned him a nomination for t ...
as Isaac
*
Khandi Alexander
Harriet Rene "Khandi" Alexander (born September 4, 1957) is an American dancer, choreographer, and actress. She began her career as a dancer in the 1980s and was a choreographer for Whitney Houston's world tours from 1988 to 1992.
During the 199 ...
as Leslie
*
Dagmara Domińczyk
Dagmara Domińczyk ( ; born July 17, 1976) is a Polish-American actress and author. She has appeared in the films '' Rock Star'' (2001), ''The Count of Monte Cristo'' (2002), '' Kinsey'' (2004), '' Trust the Man'' (2005), '' Lonely Hearts'' (200 ...
as Nadia
*
Sophie Von Haselberg
Sophie Frederica Alohilani von Haselberg (born November 14, 1986) is an American actress, best known for co-starring in the Woody Allen film '' Irrational Man''.
Early life and education
von Haselberg was born in Los Angeles, California, the d ...
as Alex
*
Eszter Balint
Eszter Balint (born 7 July 1966) is a Hungarian-American singer, songwriter, violinist, and actress.
Biography
Eszter Balint was born in Budapest, Hungary, to Marianne Kollar and Stephan Balint. She was living with the avant-garde Squat Theatre ...
as Heidi
* Lucas Near-Verbrugghe as Sam
*
Laila Robins
Laila Robins is an American stage, film and television actress. She has appeared in films including ''Planes, Trains and Automobiles'' (1987), '' An Innocent Man'' (1989), ''Live Nude Girls'' (1995), ''True Crime'' (1999), ''She's Lost Control'' ...
Strand Releasing
Strand Releasing is an American film production company founded in 1989 and is based in Culver City, California. The company has distributed over 300 auteur-driven titles from acclaimed international and American directors such as Apichatpong Wee ...
acquired all rights to US distribution. The film was released on March 22, 2017 on limited screens.
Reception
''A Woman, a Part'' has a score of 87% based on 15 reviews on review aggregate website
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
. On
Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...
the film has a score of 66 out of 100 based on 8 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".
Owen Gleiberman of ''
Variety
Variety may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats
* Variety (radio)
* Variety show, in theater and television
Films
* ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont
* ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...
'' lauded Siff's performance, noting "It’s also got a fascinating actress. Maggie Siff...has a distinctive brainy sensuality, with hints of neurotic anger." Jeannette Catsoulis of ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'' praised the filmmaking, stating, "Ms. Subrin, an accomplished visual artist and filmmaker, sifts addiction, celebrity and the plight of the aging actress into something rarefied yet real."
Glenn Kenny
Glenn Kenny (born August 8, 1959) is an American film critic and journalist. He writes for ''The New York Times'' and '' RogerEbert.com''.
Biography
Kenny attended William Paterson University, where he majored in English literature.RogerEbert.com awarded the film 3 out of 4 stars, writing that the film "mixes passion and ambivalence to create a work with ambiguities that seem earned, and lived in."
Neil Young of ''
The Hollywood Reporter
''The Hollywood Reporter'' (''THR'') is an American digital and print magazine which focuses on the Hollywood film, television, and entertainment industries. It was founded in 1930 as a daily trade paper, and in 2010 switched to a weekly larg ...
'' was less impressed with the film itself, finding the "conventional, even familiar nature all the more puzzling" given Subrin's past work. Nevertheless, Young reserved particular praise for Seymour's "nuanced supporting turn", further stating that, "Seymour has somehow never quite attained the household-name status her talents deserve." He commended Ortiz as well, noting that "it's always a delight to see Ortiz flex acting muscles that he doesn't often get to deploy in his more lucrative Hollywood outings". Kristen Yoonsoo Kim of ''
The Village Voice
''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture paper, known for being the country's first alternative newspaper, alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf (publisher), Dan Wolf, Ed Fancher, John Wilcock, and Norman Mailer, th ...
'' found the film "impressive" yet "stylistically conventional", but commended Siff's "modest but poignant performance that rings true for women of a certain age and career."