Film

Powder (1995)

Director: Victor Salva

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

When his guardian grandparent cops it, 'Powder' (Flanery), a traumatised, telepathic teenage albino, is dragged from his cellar into the unknown world of rural Texas. His frightened-rabbit appearance is only intensified by the hostile reception he encounters. Still, some folk are kindlier: Jessie (Steenburgen), for instance, principal of the kids' home he is taken to, or Sheriff Barnum (Henriksen), converted to the cause after Powder provides a medium to his comatose mother's final wishes. Then there's Goldblum's chipper science teacher, sufficiently intrigued to make reference to Einstein's forecast of a more evolved, more enlightened future humankind. It's astonishing how far writer/director Salva's film takes its ideas of innocence, beauty and goodness versus all that is false and ugly: thoroughly OTT and yet apparently straight-faced, with nary a wink of self-recognition. Impassioned nonsense, really, but something to behold.

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