Princess Cyd

It would be difficult to say exactly what the movie is about, and perhaps its refusal to fit into preconceived categories and recycle over-used cinematic clichés is its greatest strength. In a more conventional film, we'd only understand Miranda through young, selfish Cyd's point of view: a spinster aunt seemingly stuck in her routine life, alone, entrenched in her childhood home, glued to her native city, a woman without a sense of adventure or a yen for romance or pleasure. During an interview, Miranda tells an adoring audience that her story ideas don't originate from observations of others or a desire to investigate concerns, but rather from inside herself. It's confirmation that even as a writer she doesn't venture far from familiar territory.

Director Stephen Cone sets himself apart from more formulaic filmmakers by not forcing on Miranda a "blossoming" into a vortex of middle-aged lust and liberating experiences. Cone seems far more interested in sketching a couple of smudgy but believable portraits of two women making their own idiosyncratic ways in a world that leans toward labeling and certainty. Princess Cyd perhaps raises more questions than it answers, but you have to admire the filmmaker who opts for ambiguity and seems to feel fine with the resulting achievement, however on- or off-target it may be. Jessie Pinnick plays the blunt, affable Cyd as a figure growing into someone or something right before our eyes, leaving us curious to know who or what she will be. It's fun to watch her ask startling, almost impolite questions, not to be challenging or combative, but just to hear those questions out in the world, as if she has a need to formulate them so that she can begin to answer life's riddles on her own. Rebecca Spence radiates warmth and regret as Miranda, guiding her performance carefully between sympathetic and pathetic. Mature teens and parents will find lots to think about and discuss.