Peacock

I usually associate direct-to-DVD movies with the real junk, stuff that never had a chance to show up in theaters. This one is better than that. I guess it’s just hard to get a non-bloody psychological thriller booked anywhere these days. I guess we should be thankful for the DVD market … which everybody says will be dead in a decade, if not sooner. Peacock is the name of the small Nebraska town (actually filmed in Iowa, but what’s the diff?) where the story takes place. A very disturbed man dresses as a woman in private. When he is seen, he is mistaken for the man’s wife. But it’s deeper than that. He is a split personality, and the two sides of him are deeply in conflict. Cillian Murphy is amazing as the woman; he’d have fooled me. Ellen Page is in it, too, and she’s very good. It’s not a great film, but it’s pretty good.