The Ice Harvest (2005)

Solid modern-day realization of old-school noir. It's not the laff riot you'd expect from director Harold Ramis (or from the advertisements); rather, it's a gritty small-town heist flick with a mordant sense of humor. As usual, John Cusack makes for an appealing Everyman, using his self-deprecating charm to get us behind the protagonist even as he engages in questionable activity. The rest of the (reliable) cast helps as well; much like first-wave film noir, everyone has been cast not for who they are but for the type they inhabit, and Ramis and Co. pull it off admirably. There's a certain, unavoidable familiarity (the plot is straightforward, relying on human fallibility rather than the twist-happy contrivances we've been led to expect from neo-noir), but when the job is as professionally done as it is here, it doesn't matter much. Answer to the question asked here: Why yes, yes she is.

Grade: B