Cherish (2002)

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

Just stumbled upon this movie on one of the movie stations and since I love Robin Tunney and never heard of this movie and ended up watching it and later recording it.She plays an amazing role for a difficult situation brought on by a stalker and being at the wrong place at the wrong time when she was just having a simple easy life with a job she really liked.She is quite clever in a few parts and has some love twists with some unexpected.Movie has a great selection of 80s music, suspense along with a few twists and surprises and a good cast.

(No, seriously, I am going to spoil you. May lightning strike my annoying neighbors if I lie.) This is not a love story. Not exactly.See, I went into "Cherish" thinking it would be a lot heavier on the romantic comedy and not so much on the suspense. The trailer I saw was misleading that way. The truth is that it's a story about a quirky girl who finds herself in a boatload of trouble, and somewhere in there is a man with whom she could be quite happy--but the film zigged where I'd have zagged, and so there is no on-screen payoff for Zoe and Daly. Given the chemistry between them, that disappointed me. Still, it was worth the two hours and fifteen minutes I spent watching it on IFC, and Robin Tunney is charming as all-get-out. Also, I now want to explore the crawl space in the closet in the next room over.

Robin Tunney is Zoe, quite ditzy and a bit of a romantic. She loves music and regularly gets in trouble with her supervisor at work because she listens on her headphones and gets distracted.Zoe gets herself invited to a party and, mesmerized by Jason Priestley as Andrew, their boss at work, she drinks too much. Andrew offers to drive her home but she ends up going it alone ... until a stranger jumps in her car and tries to hijack her. In the process she hits and kills a San Francisco cop, caused by the hijacker's foot on the accelerator, and he manages to slip away, unseen. But his leather jacket gets ripped on her door. Plus, he ends up with her phone.The police come, she fails a Breathalyzer test, and they don't believe her story. Awaiting trial she gets put on hose arrest, with an ankle bracelet that allows her only 40 feet of mobility.Tim Blake Nelson as Daly ("name's Bill") is the government worker who has to keep tabs on Zoe. In time he starts to have sympathy for her, and she starts to enjoy his visits. But her captivity is a trying one, as she is always looking for ways to expand her range. Plus she is disappointed that no one believes her story so no one is looking for the hijacker.SPOILERS: With only one day before her trial, Daly gives her a break of sorts, arranging that she can have 9 hours, from 9AM to 6PM, of freedom to see if she can find the guy. She uses phone records and finds him, but it is a tense stand-off with police that ensues. Presumably the evidence they found in his apartment, plus the torn jacket, would clear her name. But she disappears, and at the end we see her in a bikini and on the bow of a yacht, no one knows where.

I happened to catch this flick when there was nothing else on worth watching. It sounded a little weird, so I thought I'd give it fifteen minutes to see if I liked it. I ended up giving it fifteen dollars, as I immediately ran out and bought it when I finished watching. This movie has all the aspects of movie-making that appeal to me: bizarre and outrageous fantasy sequences that we've all had at some point or another, an almost unbelievably extraordinary situation that this almost unbelievably uninteresting woman experiences, an exceptionally quirky romance, creepy stalker stuff, and moments that made my heart skip a beat. This movie is worth watching for the visuals alone. Unorthodox camera angles, use of lighting, fast-motion film, and almost assaultive colors combine with rather brilliant acting from a colorful but oddly realistic cast. On a more superficial note, Robin Tunney is, as usual, incredibly hot and SO cute as the socially-inept Zoe, who magically transforms during the course of the movie to a smart, savvy, street-wise broad...an odd result from being placed under house arrest for a year. The movie peaks at the end in an unexpected few moments of absolute terror, and I often found my breath catching in my throat in fear. On top of the suspense is the equally unexpected romance between Zoe and her "keeper." A man who appears almost grotesque in his anal retentiveness and boredom, also changes drastically as a result of his interaction with this striking and unpredictable woman.Fabulously written and filmed, Cherish is at once suspenseful, romantic, hilarious, terrifying, and artful. Give this a chance and an open mind, and you may find a new addition to your movie collection.