Track 29 (1988)

Track 29 ( 1988)    Directed by Nicolas Roeg, written by Dennis Potter.

"He Was Her Dream And Her Obsession. Her Son... And Her Lover"
A woman stuck in an unhappy marriage meets a mystery man who claims to be her long-lost son. While they quickly bond, she realises he is developing a dangerous hatred for her neglectful husband.

Linda Henry (Theresa Russell) is slowly going out of her mind as a stay at home wife to doctor Henry Henry (Christopher Lloyd). He's obsessed with his model train set and (odd) affair with Nurse Stein (Sandra Bernhard). She spends too much time alone, drinking and floating around their house in search of something to do.

At a diner one day she meets a young British man (Gary Oldman)who reminds her of a man from her own past. The meeting triggers a series of events which lead, in the end, to a tragedy, a release and a new beginning.

As you would expect from a script by Potter directed by neo-surrealist Roeg, nothing that you see on the screen can be taken at face value and it is necessary to keep your wits about you to differentiate between the real and the internalised throughout the film.

As an unfolding story of one person's creeping insanity though it's very effective. There are any number of set-pieces designed to demonstrate Russell's increasing loss of any sort of grip on reality : including a scene where Oldman, at his most effectively creepy, serenades with her the cornball ballad "M-O-T-H-E-R" and a bar scene that provides the first clue as to the coming storm. There's also a marvellously filmed slow-mo (model) train wreck.

And a scene of genuine hilarity during which Lloyd gives a speech to his fellow model enthusiasts only for the whole thing to collapse into a bizarre collision of musical song and dance and political rally.

Lloyd is agreeably distant and disconnected throughout, Oldman does his standard slightly menacing outsider turn and Russell floats and wafts through the film with no fixed accent but with a good line in Thirty Yard Stare vacancy.

Not one of Roeg's best films, certainly nowhere near the brilliance of "Walkabout", "The Man Who Fell To Earth" or "Insignificance", but interesting none the less and will certainly make you concentrate on the on-screen action.