Promises, promises, promises

 IMAGINARY CRIMES (1994)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

As told from the firsthand perspective of a teenage girl who sees more than she lets on, "Imaginary Crimes" is all implied in scene after scene by what Sonya (Fairuza Balk) witnesses. She knows her father is a con-man, a faux mover and shaker who keeps his two daughters at bay promising riches. He delivers nothing because there are no riches, no solid deals being made. What he can deliver are lies and pure deceit.

Ray Weiler (Harvey Keitel, perfectly cast) is the deceitful con man, a dreamer without a dream because such dreams cannot come to pass. In beautifully composed flashbacks, we see Ray married to his wife (Kelly Lynch) who can see the lies, the shape of a fictitious future. They live, along with a younger Sonya and a baby on the way, in a basement apartment and Ray keeps on promising them a dream home (it is all Ray's wife wants). He has invented gadgets and has procured patents, or maybe not. The present story is set in 1962 where Sonya attends a private school that Ray seemingly cannot afford but since he promised his deceased wife that Sonya and her sister would attend said school, a promise is a promise regardless. 

Sonya sees through her ambitious father, knowing that his latest deal about mineral deposits in the Rockies are unlikely to be claimed by Ray or his partner (Seymour Cassel). One day, Ray brings a boatload of money and pays the six months of unpaid rent and Sonya is startled - could her father have finally gotten lucky? Alas, not so. Meanwhile, Sonya is fixated on her English teacher (Vincent D'Onofrio) who waxes on in class about Walt Whitman and seems fixated on the prose in such a way that he forgets he's supposed to be teaching a class. Maybe Ray is not the only dreamer. 

"Imaginary Crimes" is shrewdly directed by Anthony Drazan and he has an eye for capturing an era where innocence was at an all-time high in Middle America - after all, this is Sonya's story yet she's much smarter than we think. Fairuza Balk vividly shows Sonya's observations about her world and of her father whose dealings are never on the up and up. Harvey Keitel also draws more nuances and an emotional sensitivity, more so than the script by Kristine Johnson and Davia Nelson provides, so that he shoehorns us into the dangerous small-time cons that we almost believe might deliver. What is most fascinating is that we are never sure if Ray truly believes he will strike gold or if he knows, deep down, he never will. 

"Imaginary Crimes" never quite made it clear how Ray could keep up a deception and move around so often without ever holding a menial job. I had wondered if he had saved some money or if he's truly broke because nobody can tow two children around without any cash, even in the early 1960's. His business partner as played by Seymour Cassel is also left on the sidelines - is he just as much in on the con as Ray? Yet I was still quite moved and captivated by the performances, particularly Keitel who is one of our most underappreciated actors and Balk who is even more underrated. Kudos also go to young Elisabeth Moss (later known for TV's "Mad Men" and "The Handmaid's Tale") who is naive because she truly believes in her father. Gee, I almost did as well.