ShangLuda Admirable film.

BelSports This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Allison Davies The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Raymond Sierra The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

andrewroy-04316 I really enjoy Ramsay's style and think Morvern Callar is a careful, artistically crafted film, but the lack of dialogue and plot kept me from enjoying it more. I will say that it was a very poor decision to watch this while being quite tired, and that may have also influenced my enjoyment. I was impressed by Morton's performance and Ramsay did clearly show Morvern's struggle with avoiding grief and trying to run away from it, unable to face her life head on. That was a very interesting and well developed theme, but beyond that, there was little dialogue and her interactions with Lanna didn't reveal much aside from Morvern's introverted nature. The lack of consistent, propelling plot and limited exposition in regards to Morvern's mind or intentions (along with my tired, near-sleep state when watching) made Morvern Callar a cool, good watch but not memorable or exceptional in any element.

Framescourer A magnificent but modest film telling an oblique, impressionistic story of a Glaswegian teenager growing up. Samantha Morton oscillates through the film with all the elastic contradictions of an adolescent girl: insecurity, abandon and the curious cocktail of the two when it comes to investigating her own sexuality.At the heart of the story is an act of opportunism as Morvern Callar appropriates a boyfriend's work as her own. This episode is recounted in one of my favourite sequences of all cinema, a flour fight over a dead body. Lynne Ramsay conjures magnificent photography, images as indelible, iconic and mystifying as the Emily Mortimer condiment-sex in Young Adam or Derek Jacobi approaching the canvas as Bacon in Maybury's Love Is The Devil.Needless to say this is not some confusing one-off - a wonderful, Iberian-bleached sequence hints at a conscious horizon of existential catastrophe for Morvern and later sequences of love making have Latin warmth; ardour and bliss in equal, low-key measure. 8/10

johnnyboyz So there I am, thinking that it's only Channel 4 that sponsor and promote film-making here in Britain and then the wonderfully named Morvern Callar pops up; BBC produced no less. The BBC like to pour money into big budgeted television series' – £8 million pumped into the most recent series of Dr. Who was it? But here, it seems that there is some scrap of generosity left somewhere within the BBC higher-ups when it comes to film distribution; and 2002's Morvern Callar is it.But then again Morvern Callar was, in my opinion, no masterpiece although I'm sure there are those that disagree. The film adopts an extremely realistic approach, substituting dialogue and narrative for long sequences of scenes strung together accompanied by strange music. Then there are the dream-like lit locations that the young, confused and at times seemingly psychotic characters that inhabit these locations. The film is short but ambitious; against the grain but not entirely satisfying; good but not great although the want to stand up and politely applaud once it had ended would probably had been hard to shake off had I seen this at a film festival. Morvern Callar is a film about a young, confused girl who stumbles across something that might benefit her at the expense of someone else's misfortune. Samantha Morton plays the confused young adult and the even more confused young adult that gives her her break is the boyfriend, recently deceased via suicide.So since Morvern is playing a role where her own crummy life threatens to take an upward shoot at the expense of an even crummier life (think: a soldier during a war finding a key to a safe full of gold and riches at the expense of a previously innocent civilian who's been executed), we can perhaps root for her and her actions; perhaps even relate to her and map on some of our own real-life experiences although it's doubtful. But I think this is part of the problem that the film has when it comes to delivering a satisfying experience. Morvern is not bothered by the death, she has no reaction and we don't know why. She can still laugh and joke with her buddies at a local public house and is able to tiptoe around her deceased ex's corpse when cooking dinner although we don't know why – perhaps they had an argument? Maybe she instigated the suicide? Then there is the brief theory touched upon that she never actually loved him and is actually a lesbian. This idea pops up when she bathes with another girl and when we have her previous behaviour examples in mind. But Morvern to me was more psychotic than anything else. Her heartlessness in reacting to the revelation and her laid back manner in dealing with being lost in Spain later on suggests someone with issues that effect their ability to care even at the most severe situations. Where other girls (or indeed people in general) would panic at being lost in a foreign country or would be sick at the sight of blood, Morven is perfectly fine and the scene in which she deal with the body in the bath (there's that bath popping up again) is a fine example.So if Morvern is a spaced out, lesbian, psychopath – what else does she get up to? Who else inhabits this film's world? Well, about twenty minutes to the end, none of these questions matter. The rest of the characters are stereotypical young, British adults of today and nothing much else happens when these shores are left behind. The film has a great premise, I'll grant it that but these good ideas and interesting themes are substituted later on for cheap laughs, situations any one over a certain age of maturity will struggle to identify with, and gimmicks. What was an interesting thriller about an unpublished novel and a dead author becomes a fly on the wall style series of scenes in modernised Spain complete with nudity, young ego driven male's acting in ways we don't want to see and characters generally making fools of themselves on a package holiday. The saddest thing here is that most of them are probably playing themselves: the ultimate slice of realism.And so Morvern Callar is a wired and wacky film about a wired and wacky young woman. Indeed, there is no dialogue for the opening twelve minutes and the fact it is set in Scotland creeps up on you but these are the limit of the surprises and thrills Morvern Callar has to offer. It's outgoing and bold, granted but there is little to identify with or indeed care about come the end. The scene where she meets with the book publishers is the only genuinely tense scene after the opening and how fitting that it is the only scene to actually have anything to do with the original premise. That said, I'd rather more of these were produced these days than Dr. Who episodes and subsequent spin-offs – never mind.

David Lowther A dark film, one of the darkest i've ever seen, yet almost comic with its playfulness between the morbidity of the plot and the use of music and camera usage. The soundtrack is also brilliant: you would expect a film with such a dark plot line to stick with the usual musics associated with its theme, however the use of unnaturally cheery music is excellent, and hilarious at some points. this film is an all round work of art, though perhaps a little slow moving for some people's tastes. i however thoroughly enjoyed it, and hope to watch many more films like it. one of the films strongest points has to be its use of camera: the angles, shots and movements are amazing in points, not to mention the scenery used is beautiful. the ironies of life in this film are excellent, and i believe it is an excellent representation of modern life for the working class, and how disturbed a human mind can become.