DVD: Meet Monica Velour

This was all set to be released in UK cinemas around about now, but at the last minute it has gone straight to DVD. Perhaps the distributors got nervous. You can imagine why. Kim Cattrall is a totem for all sophisticated, sexually expressive women of a certain age. She’s ultimately the reason Sex and the City was what it was. You can put gratuitous violence, killing, maiming and all manner of cheap moronic sleaze up on a big screen and rake in the moolah. But some things are just too much. Samantha as a former Eighties porn starlet, washed up, penniless and living in a trailer? That tramples on too many dreams.

It’s a shame, as Cattrall finds reserves of humanity and vulnerability that haven’t previously been noted in her screen work (her stage acting is another story). As Monica Velour (real name Linda, real situation: drunk, divorced, no access to her kid), she attracts the attention of dorky Tobe (Dustin Ingram), an obsessive teenage fan who discovers that the woman he idolises is making a comeback in a distant state. What happens when he drives across Middle America to make himself known to her has an unforced if slightly inconsequential feel to it. Naturally she gets drunk and offers herself to him and he is soon building inappropriate castles in the sky. And so they must both learn and grow and mend.

Written and directed by Keith Bearden, Meet Monica Velour has some thematic overlap with Little Miss Sunshine, another quirky road movie about dysfunction and unrealistic expectations. Both leading performers anchor it with pleasing performances, nice comedic situations are well played out, and you get to see Brian Dennehy’s wrinkled rear (as Tobe’s fun-loving dad). It doesn't linger, and maybe that's a good thing. But if you want to see Cattrall acting her age (and doing it very well), this is the movie for you.

• Find Meet Monica Velour on Amazon