Schmoedipus

Knee Dancing

1988

Doreen Ross plays Laura Zuckerman a young housewife tortured by experiences of childhood sexual abuse. This is a poignant display of the human mind desperately grasping for normalcy while having been "trained" otherwise at an early age. While Laura's mother is in the hospital for a long stay her father terrorizes Laura. Sex then is the next step and before Laura's mother comes home her father makes her promise not to tell her mother what he has been doing to her. Laura's reality is now well tainted as she oscillates repeatedly between what is real versus what she thinks is real in the actions of both men and women towards her.

While She Was Out

2008

Della Myers, a suburban housewife, lives with her twin children and her abusive husband, Kenneth. On Christmas Eve, she drives to the local mall to buy gift-wrap. In the jam-packed parking lot, she notices an old car taking up two spaces and decides to leave a note on the windshield calling them out. After the mall closes, her car is blocked by the old car and she's threatened by four thugs. She escapes in her vehicle, but they drive after her. She crashes at a dead end construction site at the edge of a forest. What unfolds in the desolate woods is Della's lone fight for survival against a gang of angry young men with murderous intent.

Sohn ohne Heimat

1955

Nightcap

2000

Mika, heiress to a Swiss chocolate company, is married to celebrated pianist André and stepmother to his son, Guillaume, whose mother died in a car wreck on his tenth birthday. Their lives are interrupted by the unexpected arrival of Jeanne, a young woman who has learned she was almost switched with Guillaume at birth.

2 or 3 Things I Know About Her

1967

As the city of Paris and the French people grow in consumer culture, a housewife living in a high-rise apartment with her husband and two children takes to prostitution to help pay the bills.

Alice

1990

Alice Tate, mother of two, with a marriage of 16 years, finds herself falling for a handsome sax player, Joe. Stricken with a backache, she consults herbalist Dr. Yang, who realizes that her problems are not related to her back, but in her mind and heart. Dr. Yang's magical herbs give Alice wondrous powers, taking her out of her well-established rut.

What Have I Done to Deserve This?

1984

A henpecked housewife ekes out a meager existence, surrounded by a host of colorful characters: her ungrateful husband, her delinquent sons, her headstrong mother-in-law, and her sex worker neighbor, among others.

Sex and Lucía

2001

Various lives converge on an isolated island, all connected by an author whose novel has become inextricably entwined with his own life.

Me and My Sister

2004

Louise, who has just written a novel, comes to Paris to meet with a potential publisher. While in the city, she stays with her older sister, Martine, who in many ways is the exact opposite of Louise: she lives in a fashionable neighborhood, is cold to others, and has snobby friends, while Louise lives in a small town and is thoroughly unpretentious. Louise's apparent happiness -- and similarities to their mother -- gradually gets on Martine's nerves.

Perfect Little Angels

1998

Having just moved to a new town, widow Elaine Freedman and her teenage daughter Justine are greeted by the effusive, terribly nice Dr. Calvin Lawrence. Sensing that Justine is bit testy and out of sorts, Dr. Lawrence recommends that she begin taking a special vitamin which he manufactures in his own home. Before long, Justine is the model of perfection -- just like all the other teenagers in town.

Revolutionary Road

2008

A young couple living in a Connecticut suburb during the mid-1950s struggle to come to terms with their personal problems while trying to raise their two children. Based on a novel by Richard Yates.

Kitchen Stories

2003

Swedish efficiency researchers come to Norway for a study of Norwegian men, to optimize their use of their kitchen. Folke Nilsson (Tomas Norström) is assigned to study the habits of Isak Bjørvik (Joachim Calmeyer). By the rules of the research institute, Folke has to sit on an umpire's chair in Isak's kitchen and observe him from there, but never talk to him. Isak stops using his kitchen and observes Folke through a hole in the ceiling instead. However, the two lonely men slowly overcome the initial post-war Norwegian-Swede distrust and become friends.

Far from Heaven

2002

In 1950s Connecticut, a housewife's life is upended by a marital crisis and mounting racial tensions in society.

Deadly Maria

1993

40-year Maria is living in a monotonous and deadlocked marriage with her husband. In addition, she has to take care of her ill despotic father. One day, she falls in love with her sensitive neighbour Dieter. But her attempt to leave her gloomy everyday life behind leads straight into tragedy.

Joe Dirt

2001

Joe Dirt is a janitor with a mullet hairdo, acid-washed jeans and a dream to find the parents that he lost at the Grand Canyon when he was a belligerent, trailer park-raised eight-year-old. Now, blasting Van Halen in his jacked-up economy car, the irrepressibly optimistic Joe hits the road alone in search of his folks.