Camille

It's rarely a good sign when a movie bypasses theaters and is released directly to the home video market, and Camille is no exception; nor should it be confused with the 1937 Greta Garbo classic of the same name. The 2007 feature debut of director Gregory Mackenzie stars Sienna Miller as the title character, a sweet but annoyingly dumb, motor-mouthed Kentuckian who has her heart set on marrying Silas (James Franco), a repellent ex-con who wants nothing to do with her but knows that her sheriff father (Scott Glenn) will send him back to the slammer if he doesn't toe the line. Camille fantasizes about a honeymoon in Niagara Falls; for Silas, the trip offers a shot at beating parole and escaping to Canada. And so off they go, until a nasty accident apparently kills Camille—except not really. She's only sort of dead, which Silas figures out when her hair falls out and she starts to rot, at which point he miraculously transforms from heel to hero and vows to get her to the falls before she, uh, really dies. Camille is described by its distributor as a “suspense-thriller,” but it's really a hybrid of rom-com, black comedy, fantasy, and even a hint of horror. Whatever the genre (and despite a good cast and some touching moments), this is largely an arch, cutesy bauble that goes for pathos but finds it evil twin, bathos, instead. Not a necessary purchase. (S. Graham)