Missing Links

CLARA'S GHOST (B+) - Chris Elliott and his wife and daughters engage in a semi-improvisational romp through a drunken family night.  Daughter Bridey Elliott ("Fort Tilden") writes and directs the story of her mom (Paula Niedert Elliott) losing her marbles and being haunted by the ghost of a woman.

Bridey and sister Abby are delightfully dark as they harangue their goofy father and reconnect with a childhood friend (Haley Joel Osment) who stops by to provide the pot to go with the gallons of alcohol consumed during a wild night at the homestead. The antics can be hit-and-miss, and you have to appreciate Chris Elliott's sense of humor (calling back to "Letterman" and "There's Something About Mary"), which he has generously passed on to his daughters.

Little moments help ground this in reality, like the only reason the girls returned home is for the birthday celebration of the family dog. Bridey creates a believable sense of horror through her mother's mental breakdown and the edginess of the celebration sliding into drunken reconciliation of the family's dark side.

MY NAME IS EMILY (2017) (B) - A teenage girl recruits a cute, nerdy boy from her new school to accompany her on a pilgrimage to northern Ireland to spring her father from a mental institution. Doe-eyed Evanna Lynch (Luna from the Harry Potter movies) brings true emotion and subtle humor to her damaged character, Emily, while George Webster brings a hang-dog, Johnny Depp-like competence to the role of her road buddy Arden. And Michael Smiley reins in the worst tendencies of a sometimes thankless role as the father, seen in flashbacks, losing his mind.

This quiet, affecting debut from writer-director Simon Fitzmaurice plays like a wholesome take on the classic road movie, not unlike "Microbe and Gasoline." Things can get a little too cute and quaint here (he overdoes the water metaphors throughout), but Lynch is a strong anchor, and Fitzmaurice has a powerful story to tell, with a clever-enough twist at the end to make it all work.

DON'T COME BACK FROM THE MOON (B) - In a miserable failed town by the Salton Sea in southern California, the fathers abandon their families, and we watch the kids cope with their form of separation anxiety. Jeffrey Wahlberg holds this all together as teenage Mickey, who does his best to support his mom and little brother while bonding with his male friends and indulging his budding sexual desires with Sonya (Alyssa Elle Steinacker)

This wolfpack of adolescents has literally nothing to do on a given day, aside from vandalize abandoned homes or strip them for parts. (One haul yields a trade for bicycles, which offer at least a hint of freedom.) It's only a matter of time before someone breaks from the pack and heads out in search of one of these deadbeat dads.

James Franco and Rashida Jones dirty themselves up to play Mickey's parents. Jones, deglamorized for most of the proceedings, plays maudlin pretty well, with her character allowing one of the local boys to hit on her after Franco takes a powder. The film is loaded with grit, both literally and figuratively. Leaning heavily on the lunar imagery and the ironic natural beauty surrounding this hellscape, Bruce Thierry Cheung directs an adaptation of a 2005 novel by Dean Bakopoulos.

BONUS TRACKS
From the closing credits of "Moon," Portland duo Glass Candy with "The Possessed":



The fine documentary "Plagues & Pleasures on the Salton Sea," which chronicles the decline of the former postwar playground beyond Palm Springs (courtesy of KQED). We caught it long ago at a Santa Fe Film Festival. It is narrated by John Waters and features the music of Friends of Dean Martinez: