No Such Thing (2002)

NO SUCH THING Sarah Polley, Robert John Burke (2002, MGM, 103 mins., R, also on DVD) With 1998's much-praised Henry Fool, notoriously indie writer-director Hal Hartley actually seemed on the verge of breaking on through to the mainstream side. But he has no intention of easing his esoteric ways by the looks of No Such Thing. An orphaned ingenue (Go's Polley) gets sent to Iceland by her ice-cold tabloid TV editor (Helen Mirren) in search of a mythical monster (Burke), who turns out to be real and a tortured, angry drunk. Somnolently paced and richly scored, Hartley's moody modern fairy tale touches on turf covered by Beauty and the Beast and even Monsters, Inc., but requires way too much reading between the lines.

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