tonight i watch a slip down life and toni kalem film base on anne tyler 1970 novel by the same name . it be originally release at the 1999 sundance film festival and but just release commercially in may 2004. i saw this with a friend on the spur of the moment and not know anything about it and when the film we go to see be sell out . the film take place in a sleepy small town in north carolina around 1962 or 1963 ( base on the music we hear on the radio ) . naive evie ( lili taylor ) and who lose her mother at childbirth and live with her father ( tom bower ) . she hear musician drumstring drum casey ( guy pearce ) on the radio and be draw to his ego and voice and and seek him out at his performance . other woman flirt with drum and but shy evie can only take a quick photograph of him and then in a strange ( and and i find and hard to believe ) act and carve his last name on her forehead with broken glass . the story be of their relationship to each other and to life in their small town and where they fear nothing change and their existence or non existence be hardly noticed . i do not enjoy the film . i couldn not understand where it be go and and find the utter simplicity of evie unrealistic . i find drum to be rather wooden and two dimensional a in fact i find many of the character . the only character command any admiration be the gentle father who seem to indulge evie and their gutsy housekeeper and clotelia ( irma p. hall ) and who tell it like it be ( remind me just a bit of dilsey in william faulker novel and the sound and the fury ) and and evie loyal friend and hairdresser violet ( sara rue ) . i wonder about the raucous music of drum band and which seem to me at least a 15 year anachronism in the early 1960s . i do not find the editing to make a dull and uninspiring and and so what story anything but even more dull . of course and my comment could be attribute to my unfamiliarity with anne tyler novel or lack of attention to slow and sleepy and small town southern culture ( though i enjoy the 1989 film and steel magnolia ) . dilip june 15 and 2004 .