Buffalo '66: Means justify the end. [mild spoilers]

This film, written by, directed by, and starring Vincent Gallo, was even better than I remembered it. It's a very unlikely premise, and a great setup. Gallo's character, Billy Brown, zags between paranoia, fury, childlike terror, and violence. Yet somehow we still sympathize with him at some level. It's an excellent job of acting, very physical, very unfiltered.

But what struck me most about the film [mild spoilers ahead] was the fact that if you looked merely at the end of the film, it's an almost embarrassingly trite "messed-up dude redeemed by the love of a good woman" ending. I mean, really? He's just suddenly fine? And giving? And excited about life? I mean, this ending probably would seem over the top in a Meg Ryan/Tom Hanks pairing. (And, yes, I'll admit it, I've enjoyed some of those.) But in this case, the means have justified the end. There's been so much pain, so much discomfort, so much violent talk, so many screwed-up lives along the way. There's been so much time invested in us somehow finding compassion within ourselves for this loser that when the violent ending turns out merely to have been a figment of his imagination, and he chooses to go back to Layla, and suddenly it seems like everything might be okay... well somehow the fairy tale ending seems to have been earned in this case. (Warning to future filmmakers: you should still try to resist the fairy tale ending.)

It would be silly to sign off without mentioning Christina Ricci's wonderful performance as Layla. It's a challenging role, with real danger of the character merely being a cipher throughout. But the slow-dawning compassion and forgiveness she's able to communicate through her eyes and face give the character a depth and help justify some rather inexplicable choices along the way.

(Oh, and I'd not seen many (any?) David Lynch films before I saw this the first time, so the Lynchian elements had escaped me. Not this time. Luckily they worked too. Really a strange, moving film.)