Duck

Too weird to take seriously (or dismiss outright), this stilted drama has the rarely foregrounded Philip Baker Hall playing a suicidal widower who, once evicted, finds himself adopted by a duckling during his wanderings in the park. There are precedents for this kind of old-coot-and-adorable-pet cinema (Umberto D., Harry and Tonto), but the director, a USC film grad, demonstrates little in the way of keenness or even sentimentality—only a strange Angeleno detachment that results in odd choices like setting her tale in a future that somehow still has a Bush as President. (Opens Fri; Click here for venues.) — Joshua Rothkopf