Movie Reviews
Expired: Worth Paying the Parking Meter For
Lindsay Berg |
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 Humor can be found in just about anything these days, and loneliness and melancholy are no exception.
Two pathetic and godforsaken people are actually capable of evoking humor out of pity, as proven in Expired. To label the film a love story may be completely unconventional, but at the same time, one that can actually come off as realistically accurate. Claire (Samantha Morton) and Jay (Jason Patric) are examples of how a person can cope with being alone in this world: either with bitterness and resentment or kindness and altruism. The combination of the two types of people results in a film filled with moments of comedic brilliance and instances of deep and profound sadness--oftentimes there is a sense of ambivalence of whether to laugh or cry.
Claire and Jay are both parking enforcement officers in Los Angeles, consumed with their jobs for very different reasons. Claire hates her job and is constantly saddened by the abuse she gets from parking violators. Jay is obsessed with his job, and loves nothing more than to write tickets to as many drivers as humanly possible. Needless to say, neither one of their lives is enviable.
 As far as their personal lives are concerned, Claire lives with and takes care of her paralyzed and stroke-ridden mother in a depressingly decorated house. The wallpaper actually makes your stomach turn, the Christmas tree is a 12-inch plastic piece of garbage and the furniture looks like it was acquired from numerous garage sales. Even more aesthetically painful is Claire’s attire, including clothes that were possibly disposed of from a retirement home. Oddly enough, however, Claire harbors no outward resentment and proves to possibly be one of the few people in Los Angeles without a mean bone in her body. Kind of ironic, considering her profession is one that allows each of us to prove we are no strangers to that anatomy the instant we find that infuriating notice on our windshield.
Jay, on the other hand, embraces and accepts nothing except the minute power of his job. Distributing parking tickets seems like his self-righteous way of cleaning up the city one expired meter at a time. His last relationship was in college, in which he impregnated his ex-wife, was forced to drop out of school and currently remains estranged from all his family members. He is crass, aggressively confrontational, shockingly defensive and lacks any amount of respect towards others. Strangely, in his own volatile and twisted way, Jay takes a liking to Claire, and courts her in the most aberrant and volatile fashion. He verbally abuses her to an uncomfortable extent, which you almost feel guilty laughing about. True to her personality, Claire continually takes it and forces the question: Is it better to have nothing or something?
 Their pseudo-love story begins with an uncomfortable dinner at her house with her mom, and ends with a last stab at a somewhat satisfying lovemaking session (inevitably a failure). Any act of kindness Jay does for Claire and any feelings Claire exhibits for Jay are genuinely questionable considering how lonely they both are. It is apparent they both unhealthily indulge in the relationship for separate reasons, which never ends well. No real substance ever exists between the two of them, which is sad, but ruthlessly realistic. Their sex is off-putting and borderline dolorific, and their dialogue is systematically formal and impersonal. Perhaps the best example of valuing companionship over compatibility is their horribly unsynchronized gift exchange: Jay gives insecure, overweight Claire a hot pink string bikini and Claire gives Jay a fully loaded pepper mill. To say they are never quite on the same wavelength is almost unnecessary.
Writer and director Cecilia Miniucchi may have found her small but solid breakthrough. With Expired, she demonstrates a creative and original way of exploring depressing elements of human emotion in a light-hearted tone. The dialogue is very fluent, and Morton and Patric justly prove Miniucchi’s writing abilities. It never hurts to have two seasoned actors for a relatively newcomer’s screenplay, but Miniucchi proves she has potential to hold her own. At times scenes do lack poignancy, and perhaps with a little more refinement they might have succeeded on a grander scale, but particular elements like the set design of Claire’s apartment and her aunt’s home in Pomona, Claire’s wardrobe and the simple quirkiness of exploring the life of a parking meter officer create a nice little film.
 At the very least, Expired will perhaps force a moment of restraint the next time you are compelled to curse a parking officer straight to hell--but maybe no film can ever be that good.
Expired is now playing at the Laemmle Sunset 5 and the Laemmle Monica 4.
For more information, visit expiredthemovie.com.
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