Winter Passing (2006)

Winter Passing is also being called ''the serious Will Ferrell movie,'' but he's not especially serious in it. Put it this way: His character Corbit is one of those movie types who's into ''kar-a-tay,'' which is a joke that must officially die. In a secluded house in Michigan's snowy Upper Peninsula, Corbit is the stunted adult who plays guitar and cares for an even more stunted adult, a shriveled recluse of a writer named Don (Ed Harris, in a desert-island hairdo), when Don's mournful daughter Reese (Zooey Deschanel) Greyhounds over from New York City to visit. For the first 20 minutes, before she gets to Michigan, the movie works. Writer-director Adam Rapp (Anthony's bro, making his film debut) captures downtown New York in a rare and lovely light: November afternoons drained of sun, cluttered apartments with ratty blankets over a mattress on the floor, that kind of thing. Deschanel, black hair falling all over her face, is a perfect fit for this. Then in Michigan, a kind of lugubrious shtick takes over. Maybe they should have visited her.

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