Lake City (2008)

An intermittently admirable but largely incongruous work that suggests not only divergent sensibilities on the part of the two neophyte filmmakers, but a certain indecisiveness regarding their core audience.

"Lake City" is a throwaway film with a cast it doesn't deserve.

The movie has an earnest tone, and a burnished golden glow that's pleasing to the eye, but the characters have no life beyond their immediate problems, and the actions the plot requires them to take to resolve them.

All of these movies uneasily coexist under the umbrella title of Lake City, which is a shame because Sissy Spacek can be found wasting a genuinely affecting performance in this mess.

The real shame is the waste of Spacek. She's an American treasure who doesn't work nearly enough; to see this star make a rare appearance, only to wither among such emotional cheap shots, is the one thing in Lake City that will genuinely make you weep.

The filmmakers rely excessively on a repeated dreamlike flashback and on foliage, fields and sunsets to remind us 'we are all part of a greater universe.'