Turn the River Movie
Turn the River Movie Movie
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The Turn the River Movie was released on 2008-05-09 00:00:00.000 and is classified within the following genere(s) Drama. The Turn the River Movie was given an MPAA rating of: Rated R for language. It's country of origin is United States (USA), and it's main language is English. The movie runs 92 Minutes long.
Turn the River Movie Trailer
Turn the River Movie - Director
The Turn the River Movie was directed by Chris Eigeman.
Turn the River Movie - Writer
The Turn the River Movie was written by Chris Eigeman.
Turn the River Movie - Tagline
Sometimes Your Last Shot is Your First Break
Turn the River Movie Plot
Billiards Turn the River Movie
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In the thriller TURN THE RIVER, Famke Janssen (Best Actress- Hamptons Film Festival) stars as Kailey a small town pool hustler in upstate New York. She ekes out a living playing poker, periodically driving into Manhattan to check up on her mentor, Quinn (Rip Torn), who runs Quinn's a hardcore pool hall. Kailey (Janssen) is determined to raise $50,000 to wrest her son Gulley (Jaymie Dornan), who she was forced to give up at birth, from the toxic clutches of her alcoholic ex-husband David (Matt Ross) and his domineering mother (Lois Smith) and move to Canada for a better life. In order to win the money, Kailey must score a match with the best player at Quinns, Duncan (John Juback). With this as her only hope for a future with her son, Kailey starts to play and the stakes have never been higher.
Turn the River Movie - Production Companies
The Turn the River Movie was produced by: Mr. Nice
Turn the River Movie Distributor(s)
The Turn the River Movie was distributed by:
- Screen Media Films (2008) (USA) (theatrical)
- Screen Media Ventures
Turn the River Movie Awards
In 2007, the following cast and crew of the billiard movie Turn the River won the following awards at the Hamptons International Film Festival:
- Famke Janssen ............Special Recognition, Best Actress
- Hamish Rothwell........Best Director
- Famke Janssen..........Special Prize
- Chris Eigeman..............Best Screenplay
If there are any other awards for the cast and crew of the Turn the River movie, please let us know by using the form below.
Turn the River Movie Filming Locations
New York, USATurn the River Movie Cast
Turn the River Cast
- Famke Janssen - as Kailey Sullivan
- Jaymie Dornan - as Gulley
- Rip Torn - as Teddy Quinette
- Matt Ross - as David
- Lois Smith - as Abigail
- Marin Hinkle - as Ellen
- Terry Kinney - as Markus
- John Juback - as Duncan
- Tony Robles - as Ralphie
- Jordan Bridges - as Brad
- Ari Graynor - as Charlotte
- Santo D'Asaro - as Scott
- Zoe Lister Jones - as Kat
- Elizabeth Atkeson - as Sally
- Joseph Siravo - as Warren
- Brennan Brown - as Randolph
- Jordan Lage - as Detective Crippen
- Pete Macnamara - as Chasm Falls Officer
- Henry Leyva - as Dale Armstrong
- Greg Haas - as Darby Jackson
- Paul Thode - as Eric Muftic
- Judith Greentree - as Senior Citizen
- David Calicchio - as Detective Calicchio
- Chris Eigeman - as Mike Simms
- Jen Arvay - as Featured extra
- James Avondolio - as Pool Player
- Kevin Barber - as Pool Player
- Tom Carney - as Pool Player
- Theresa Purcell - as Pool Player
- Rebecca Silbery-Tatafu - as Pool Player
- Bill Sorice - as Charlie
Turn the River Movie - Press and News Coverage
The film has already generated quite a bit of press. I won't repost everything here because there is just so much of it, but a quick google search will do the trick.
Turn the River Movie
- Title: Turn the River Movie
- Author: billiardsforum (Billiards Forum)
- Published: 5/19/2008 6:01:45 AM
- Last Updated: 3/9/2020 8:45:17 AM
- Last Updated By: billiardsforum
Turn the River Movie Comments
Gulley Jimson from New York City, NY on 4/4/2008 1:21:20 PM
This new pool movie, Turn the River, opens in New York and LA in May 2008.
Turn the River is currently in a Wisconsin file festival. Here is a review of it's showing there.
"Turn the River" at the 2008 Wisconsin Film Festival
An indie drama about a pool shark looking to save her son screened Thursday at the Bartell
By Katya Szabados
2008-04-04Strikingly sincere acting and a beautifully paired musical backdrop carry the story in Turn the River, actor Chris Eigeman's writing and directorial debut.
Set in and around New York City, the film stars Famke Janssen as Kailey, a gritty pool and poker-hustler trying to scam enough money to rescue her 11-year-old son, Gulley (Jaymie Dornan), from his semi-alcoholic and anger-ridden father who is unaware that the two have been communicating for years. Kailey was forced to give up her son at birth in exchange for Gulley's grandmother's word to stop harassing her. Ever since, she's been trying to forge a meaningful relationship with the boy without the family knowing.
The two send each other letters via Kailey's pool-hustling mentor, Quinn (Rip Torn). Kailey's concern for her son's emotional and physical health in his father's care leads her to return to Quinn's pool hall, attempting to raise some $60,000 to buy fake passports that will get them to Canada.
Turn the River excels as an independent film, with sincere and believable acting complemented by a vibrant set. The colors on-screen seem to pop, and if there's a theme in the movie, it's a color: blue. There are blue-lit pool halls, lots of blue shirts, blue walls, curtains and books in Gulley's room.
While often serious, the film is punctuated with humor in the relationships between Kailey, Quinn and Gulley, and the audience routinely responded with laughter. The music, written and performed by Clogs, complements the movie perfectly, building the tension at just the right moments and meanwhile lingering in the background, carrying the movie along.
Turn the River has won awards for Best Screenplay and Special Recognition for Janssen's acting at the Hamptons Film Festival. The film very nearly sold out the 200-seat Bartell Theatre festival's opening day and will re-play Sunday at the same location. Anyone with the time would be foolish to miss it.
Source: isthmus.com/screens/movies/turn-the-river-at-the-2008-wisconsin-film-festival/
And yes, all the actors did their own shots at the pool table.
billiardsforum from Halifax, NS on 1/13/2009 12:17:00 PMNice to see a more recent billiard movie like "Turn the River" hit the big screen.
Here is a review for Turn the River billiards movie from Newsday:
Why has Chris Eigeman, the longtime member of Whit Stillman's acting ensemble ("Metropolitan," "The Last Days of Disco"), waited so long to get behind the camera? "Turn the River," his directing debut (he also wrote the script), is a small-scale but thoroughly engrossing drama full of strong performances and sharp dialogue. It's a noir with a female lead in Famke Janssen (the "X-Men" flicks), who hides her supermodel beauty behind the hardened, haunted face of a pool shark hoping to hustle up enough money to skip town with her young son, Gulley (Jaymie Dornan).
That's the plot, simple and somewhat imperfect, but Eigeman is focused on character: Nearly everyone here seems alive and real and complicated, from the local pool-hall owner (Rip Torn) to Gulley's bullying, insecure father (Matt Ross). Janssen is heartbreaking as a woman whose tough exterior hides a mom's mushiness. Eigeman may not be a visual stylist, but "Turn the River" marks the belated emergence of a fine new filmmaker.
Review by Rafer Guzman
(c) 2008 NewsdayHere is another review for Turn the River billiards movie:
Why has Chris Eigeman, the longtime member of Whit Stillman's acting ensemble ("Metropolitan," "The Last Days of Disco"), waited so long to get behind the camera? "Turn the River," his directing debut (he also wrote the script), is a small-scale but thoroughly engrossing drama full of strong performances and sharp dialogue. It's a noir with a female lead in Famke Janssen (the "X-Men" flicks), who hides her supermodel beauty behind the hardened, haunted face of a pool shark hoping to hustle up enough money to skip town with her young son, Gulley (Jaymie Dornan).
That's the plot, simple and somewhat imperfect, but Eigeman is focused on character: Nearly everyone here seems alive and real and complicated, from the local pool-hall owner (Rip Torn) to Gulley's bullying, insecure father (Matt Ross). Janssen is heartbreaking as a woman whose tough exterior hides a mom's mushiness. Eigeman may not be a visual stylist, but "Turn the River" marks the belated emergence of a fine new filmmaker.
Review by Rafer Guzman
(c) 2008 NewsdayHere is another review of "Turn the River" from the WI Film Festival:
When I first saw that Famke Janssen was staring in one of the movies playing at the Wisconsin Film Festival this weekend, I immediately knew I had to see it. In fact, when Jesse Russell, editor for Dane101, called me yesterday to ask which movie I was on my way to attend, I couldn't even tell him the name and only acknowledged it as "the one Famke Jensen was in".
For the most part, people know her as Jean Gray/Phonix from the X-Men movies or the nymphomaniac, Xena "I Kill Men by Crushing Them Between My Thighs" Onatop, in the James Bond movie, "Goldeneye". But for others, she is known as one of the most underrated actresses around, and a true hero and leader of independent films. After all, she's done: "Love and Sex", "Rounders", "Made", "Eulogy", "The Gingerbread Man" and "Monument Ave".
Before the lights went down in The Bartell Theater, Meg Hamel (Wisconsin Film Festival Coordinator) informed us that first time writer/director, Chris Eigeman and the star, Famke Janssen, almost showed up for a Q&A, but at the last minute could not attend due to scheduling conflicts. Damn.
Once the movie started, I learned (and kind of remembered) the title of the film, "Turn the River" in which Janssen plays a down and out pool shark trying to reclaim and rescue (or kidnap as others see it) her son from an abusive family. She then, with the help of a pool store owner (Rip Torn), try to gamble and swindle as many people as possible to pay for fake passports and extra money to start their new life in Canada.
Within the first 15 minutes of the movie, I was starting to worry. The shots seemed off, the editing seemed sloppy and the acting seemed minimal from everyone around except Janssen, with even a veteran actor like Rip Torn having moments that seemed "phoned in". But as we all know, indie movies are indie movies because they don't have much of a budget, so I decided to let it go. And once I did, the beat that seemed missing at first, started to thump and I was starting to enjoy the ride.
The kid in the movie, Jaymie Dornan and the father figure, Rip Torn do a pretty good job throughout, but of course, Famke carries the film on her shoulders like a champ and is the main reason the film works. There were interesting plot points and some clever dialogue, but mostly, it was just fun to watch Janssen play a role like this.
There were some truly spectacular shots Famke sank while playing pool in the film. In fact, the audience in the theater cheered at one climactic shot, since it was clear there were no CGI or trick camera work involved.
Without giving anything away, the ending bugged the hell out of me. It seems Eigeman felt like he had to go in a certain direction, which, for me, made it all the more predictable.
Although writing this up, I'm worried about being too hard on the movie, since I did truly enjoy the film. It just hurts more when I know it could have been better if they would have just taken a bit more time. But please, if you haven't seen it, I would suggest attending the next screening on Sunday, 8pm at The Bartell Theater. It's worth checking out.
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