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Review

The fabulous pop star Bjork imparts a strong, naturalistic presence as Selma, a displaced Czech in small-town, 1960s America. Going blind from a hereditary disease, Selma is fighting an unrelenting deadline, working backbreaking and tedious jobs, scrounging for money for her son's eye operation, armed only with steely determination and an unbreakable code of honor. She can transmute the noises of her factory job into music, imagining elaborate dance numbers like those she barely sees on the silver screen. Her favorite actor is Fred Astaire, and her favorite parts are the spectacular dance numbers. She's an innocent in a world of opportunistic betrayal, a grounded element in a broad allegory of sacrifice. While the narrative structure could have been tighter, there are moments of charming whimsy and gut-wrenching anguish, delivered with a sure hand by a remarkable cast who prevent the pathos from devolving into bathos. Watch it knowing that it will rip your heart out. It's worth the price of admission just to see and hear Bjork sing My Favorite Things in her local production of The Sound of Music.