Ripple Effect

Lebanese-American actor-director Philippe Caland's Ripple Effect, which costars the film's executive producers Forest Whitaker, Virginia Madsen, and Minnie Driver, begins when fashion designer Amer Atrash (Caland), who has a predilection for tiny hats and shiny shirts, loses a key source of funding, putting his business in jeopardy. Atrash starts calling in favors, trying to get his comfortable Los Angeles life back on track, but while his wife Sherry (Madsen) offers support, she also has problems of her own, which become worse as Atrash starts to run out of options. Eventually, Atrash decides to revisit a significant event from his past, which leads him to Phillip (Whitaker), a philosophical man in a wheelchair, and his wife Kitty (Driver), a nightclub singer (Driver croons an original tune called “Burnt by the Sun,” which isn't half bad). Although the Oscar-winning Whitaker has a soft spot for these sorts of scrappy pseudo-spiritual enterprises (such as The Air I Breathe), he also often elevates the proceedings with the sheer force of his conviction. Ripple Effect, a tale of bad karma, is no exception. Recommended. (K. Fennessy)