A terrific Pennsylvania movie, “Colewell” beautifully captures the look and feel of small-town life.
It’s set in the fictional burg of Colewell, Pennsylvania, but it was largely filmed in Noxen, a tiny village outside Scranton. It is available on DVD and assorted streaming platforms.
Written and directed by Drexel University’s Tom Quinn, the quiet, low-key drama stars Karen Allen (“Raiders of the Lost Ark”) as Nora, the postmaster in Colewell. Thanks to her job, Nora is always surrounded by folks looking to gossip, share recipes or have a cup of coffee.
When Nora is told that the USPS is going to shut down her office, she knows she’ll not only lose her job but the companionship she’s taken for granted.
And it is not only Nora who is worried. The townsfolk push back against the closure with town hall meetings and legal proceedings, to little avail.
Running only 70 minutes, the movie is not a protest picture about the USPS’s woes, though it movingly laments how tough it is for smaller, economically challenged communities to lose access to mail services.
The real subject of “Colewell” is the fine line between solitude and loneliness. Nora walks that line every day, trying to find the right balance for her contented but austere life.
Shot in 2017 over the course of a month, “Colewell” features a number of recognizable NEPA locations, including the Old Noxen School and Tioga Street in downtown Tunkhannock. The names of local towns, including Slate Mill, Junedale and Mahoning Lake, are mentioned in passing. And many of the supporting actors in the film are local residents making their film debuts.
Ironically, Noxen residents know just how realistic “Colewell” is. A few years before the movie was shot, townsfolk watched as their post office was targeted for a shut down. They banded together in hopes of swaying the USPS, but were unsuccessful, and the Noxen office was shuttered.
ALSO NEWLY RELEASED: Paramount continues to get a lot of mileage out of “Mean Girls,” the movie which put Allentown’s Amanda Seyfried on the map. The newly released Blu-ray set “Girls Rule Collection” showcases three female-centered comedies from the early aughts: “Mean Girls,” “Clueless” and “She’s The Man.”
Scripted by Tina Fey, “Mean Girls” is arguably the sharpest of the trio though Amy Heckerling’s “Clueless” does a terrific job skewering Beverly Hills excess and “She’s The Man” offers up some surprisingly thoughtful lessons in gender expectations.
Lindsay Lohan stars in “Mean Girls” as a new student who, in order to fit in at North Shore High School, attempts to win over the popular girls, known as the Plastics (Rachel MacAdams, Lacey Chabert). Seyfried is a hoot as Karen Smith, the dimmest member of the Plastics.
Originally broadcast on “American Masters” and now on DVD, the doc “Keith Haring: Street Art Boy” celebrates the late painter who set the art world on fire in the 1980s with his subway graffiti, exhibits and extravagant parties. Among those interviewed are Haring’s NYC pals Kenny Scharf and Ann Magnuson as well as his parents and sister, who movingly describe both his childhood dreams of artistic success and his untimely demise from AIDS.
Amy Longsdorf is a Morning Call contributor.
