LILY RABE AND LISAGAY HAMILTON IN REDEMPTION TRAIL

Unresolved drama of two ladies with traumas in their past

Reclusive farm manager Tess (vet black actress LisaGay Hamilton) meets whit medical doctor Anna (Lily Rabe, coming up in Hunger Games 3) when out of the blue Anna tries to hang herself from a tree in California's Sonoma County. She's trespassed onto the farm Tess maintains for absent English investment tycoon John Stubbs (Jake Weber), who comes from NYC once a year with his daughter Juliet (Juliette Stubbs). Anna is riddled with guilt over the recent death of her 8-year-old daughter Ruby (Asta Sjogren-Uyehara), killed when a horse bolted. Anna had pushed the riding lessons a bit. Tess has long pursued a life of active solitude. She nurses pain from older traumas, having done serious jail time for violent interactions with cops as part of the Oakland Black Panthers. Anna comes from Oakland too, currently anyway, having left behind a glamorous house in the Oakland hills where she lived with Ruby and left-leaning UC Berkeley professor husband David (Hamish Linklater, of Miranda July's The Future). The two women bond in reclusiveness, but men intervene, or try to. Redemption Trail doesn't particularly live up to its title, since there's not much resolution. Or after a slow progression it's got us on the trail, but we haven't gotten there.

Tess finds out Anna's husband is looking for her in nearby Petaluma (and so are the cops), yet surprisingly, given her hatred of police and parole situation and her leathery toughness, she consents to having Anna remain in hiding on the farm. How exactly did ex-con Tess get this plum job in the first place, maintaining a beautiful farm with horses and grapes? What is happening during all this to Anna's busy medical practice? What leads David to come up to Sonoma County to look for Anna?

When John comes from New York with Juliet, he immediately finds a crumpled handbill on the seat of the tractor and learns who Anna is. His call brings David, who departs angrily when Anna refuses to return with him. It seems Tess isn't just John's employee, though she says, "I'm not your girlfriend." Maybe, maybe not. A secondary plot of pregnant Hispanic women and local bad men involving a number of characters and scenes in Spanish isn't well developed though somehow, not quite clearly, both Anna and Tess become involved in it, the latter to avenge a rape.

Viewers who want to admire nice photography of golden NorCal hills and sweeping grass (contrasted with a set of equally handsome quick opening shots of Oakland and the UC Berkeley campus) may enjoy this slow-mover, whose exploration of emotional wounds happens in impossibly glamorous and beautiful settings. But despite its polish and good acting and some scenes of almost painful intimacy, the film seems lacking in urgency as well as plausibility. Redemption Trail's audience award when it debuted suggests further festival possibilities, but theatrical release seems doubtful.

Redemption Trail, 92 mins., debuted at Mill Valley, where it won an audience award. Screened for this review as part of the San Francisco Film Society's Cinema by the Bay series, showing Saturday, November 23, 2:15 pm at the Roxie Theater. Sjogren teaches film at San Francisco State University and this is her third feature. This film seems much changed from an earlier draft described on the SF State site, but the bringing together of two women and their seeing each other in their dreams remains.

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©Chris Knipp. Blog: http://chrisknipp.blogspot.com/.