Claire Dolan

Breaking the Waves and Career Girls star Katrin Cartlidge toplines this slow, enormously bleak but impeccably acted drama about a woman's attempt to right her foundering life. Cartlidge plays Irish immigrant Claire Dolan, a high-dollar prostitute working to pay off the debts she owes to her pimp Roland (played with chilling single-minded intensity by Colm Meaney). Into Claire's dark existence shines a ray of hope in the form of a cabbie named Elton (Vincent D'Onofrio), but when she tries to establish a new life with him by fleeing the city, Roland reels her back in with a vengeance. First and foremost of note here is Cartlidge's standout stoic, world-weary turn as Claire, but director Lodge Kerrigan, whose feature debut Clean, Shaven was a big art house hit, coaxes similarly impressive performances out of both Meaney and D'Onofrio, making this (at times a bit too) sparse drama an acting tour-de-force. Highly recommended. (S. C. Sickles)[DVD Review—Mar. 7, 2006—New Yorker, 95 min., not rated, $29.95—Making its first appearance on DVD, 1998's Claire Dolan sports a fine transfer and DVD extras including an audio introduction by associate director of programming Kent Jones (9 min.), a booklet containing an archival interview with late star Katrin Cartlidge and an essay by Village Voice critic Michael Atkinson, and trailers. Bottom line: a small but solid extras package for a powerful indie film.]