Nicolas Roeg, director of the notorious Man who fell to Earth, also presented Track 29, a 1988 psychological drama set in a little american town, which is an adaption of a 1974 tv-play entitled Schmoedipus.
Theressa Russel plays the lead role of Linda, a childless housewife neglected by her husband, Christopher Lloyd, who spends almost his entire time with his obsessional hobby, model trains. Having nowhere to turn to, the troubled woman recounts her late adolescence, when she got date-raped and gave birth to a son sent for adoption immediately, to avoid a scandal. Maternal insticts cloud her already deranged mind, when a mysterious and attractive stranger shows up in town. He is played by a young Gary Oldman and, predictably enough, changes her life.
Genuinely interesting and sentimentally intense, Track 29 investigates Oedipodian Complexes, love, loss and obsession. The question whether mental inbalance and illusions can bring about true happiness to a loveless life comes up, as the movie unfolds to a shocking peak, where it as well ends.
The basic actors performances together with Dennis Potter's script are this movie's most powerful elements. Nicolas Roeg also does a good job, but his independent film style contributes to this movie being regarded an art-house film, not appealing to a larger audience.
Basically one of my favorite films ever, I would mainly recommended to cinema-lovers worldwide as an alternative look at seemingly every-day people.