MOVIE REVIEW : Mini-Budget ‘Risk’ a Complex And Well-Told Love Story

Deirdre Fishel’s captivating debut feature, “Risk,” a love story of exceptional insight and reflection, reveals how a passionate affair can lead to a devastating confrontation with self. It’s one of those mini-budget films with a raw, unpolished look and feel that complements rather than detracts from its material.

While her film has a steady, rhythmic flow, Fishel wisely focuses steadfastly on her people, which results in an unfussy, natural style; there’s no artiness here, no fancy camera angles. At the same time, “Risk” has a sense of nuance, of a comprehensive illumination of emotions, that seems distinctly feminine.

“Risk” really lives up to its title. Joe (David Ilku), a pleasant-looking, friendly young man zeros in on Maya (Karen Sillas), a striking young woman, while riding one evening on a New York bus. Although Maya, a struggling painter, backs off from his advances, she finds herself, a day or so later, letting him in her crummy apartment--and almost immediately joining him in her bathtub.

Maya and Joe, both so very attractive, are ripe for each other: she’s finding it so hard to make it in her work that she’s wondering what she should be doing with her life; for Joe reaching out to Maya is a way of breaking out of his self-described “anonymity”--living at a YMCA, apparently drifting from one minimum-wage job to another. They unleash a spirit of recklessness in each other to the extent that they’re quickly off to rural Connecticut in a stolen car. (Not to worry, Fishel, though inspired by a news item, refuses steadfastly to turn her material into yet another “lovers-on-the-run” adventure.)

Fishel reveals what a fine writer she is in the deft way, in the course of the couple’s journey, she shifts focus from Maya to Joe. Joe winds up on the doorstep of his pregnant older sister Nikki (Molly Price, in an admirably complex portrayal), with the hope of finding shelter for him and Maya and work from his builder brother-in-law Karl (Jack Gwaltney), who is leery of Joe. But what has Maya gotten herself into? Why is Nikki’s loving concern for her brother so intense? Why is Karl’s resentment of Joe tinged with jealousy? Ultimately mature but made vulnerable through love, Maya becomes one of a zillion women who has let herself get carried away by an ardent lover she really doesn’t know and may well be more deeply troubled than she could ever imagine.

Fishel is as skilled a director as she is a writer, and the portrayals of Sillas, seen recently--and impressively--in “What Happened Was . . . ,” and Ilku have a completeness that’s extraordinary. Ilku is as touching as he is unsettling as a young man for whom love releases at once terrible demons and a deep yearning to make something of his life. (In time we realize Joe’s confident pursuit of Maya was in fact a remarkable act of courage.) Sillas’ Maya, in turn, discovers her inherent resiliency and honesty tested as never before. “Risk” ends abruptly, leaving us confounded, which seems exactly as it should be.

* MPAA rating: Unrated. Times guidelines: It includes some strong language, some nudity, discreet lovemaking, complex adult themes .

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‘Risk’

Karen Sillas: Maya

David Ilku: Joe

Molly Price: Nikki

Jack Gwaltney: Karl

A Seventh Art Releasing presentation of a Naked Eye Films production in association with Hank Blumenthal. Writer-director Deirdre Fishel. Producer Gordon McLennan. Cinematographer Peter Pearce. Editors Fishel, McLennan. Music John Paul Jones. Production designer Flavio Galuppo. Set dresser Phillip Clarke. Running time: 1 hour, 24 minutes.

* In limited release at the Monica 4-Plex, 1332 Second St., Santa Monica. (310) 394-9741.