Powder Blue is a 2009 drama film

Drama film

A drama film is a film genre that depends mostly on in-depth development of realistic characters dealing with emotional themes. Dramatic themes such as alcoholism, drug addiction, infidelity, moral dilemmas, racial prejudice, religious intolerance, poverty, class divisions, violence against women...

 with an ensemble cast

Ensemble cast

An ensemble cast is made up of cast members in which the principal actors and performers are assigned roughly equal amounts of importance and screen time in a dramatic production. This kind of casting became more popular in television series because it allows flexibility for writers to focus on...

 featuring several interconnected story arcs. It was written and directed by Timothy Linh Bui

Timothy Linh Bui

Timothy Linh Bui is a Vietnamese-born American filmmaker, film producer, and screenwriter. He directed Green Dragon, and co-wrote and produced Three Seasons.-Early life:...

 based on the 1997 novel Ponto de Partida by brazilian medium Chico Xavier

Chico Xavier

Chico Xavier, born Francisco de Paula Cândido was a popular medium in Brazil's spiritism movement who wrote 413 books, ostensibly using a process known as "psychography"....

, and features Patrick Swayze

Patrick Swayze

Patrick Wayne Swayze was an American actor, dancer and singer-songwriter. He was best known for his tough-guy roles, as romantic leading men in the hit films Dirty Dancing and Ghost, and as Orry Main in the North and South television miniseries. He was named by People magazine as its "Sexiest...

's last film appearance before his September 2009 death.

The film saw only limited theatrical release in the USA and was ultimately released principally on DVD in May 2009. The film was subsequently released in Kazakhstan and Russia and on US cable television premium movie channels in late 2009.

Plot

Several Los Angeles

Los Ángeles

Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

 residents meet on Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve refers to the evening or entire day preceding Christmas Day, a widely celebrated festival commemorating the birth of Jesus of Nazareth that takes place on December 25...

 through chance, tragedy, loss and divine intervention.

Patrick Swayze

Patrick Swayze

Patrick Wayne Swayze was an American actor, dancer and singer-songwriter. He was best known for his tough-guy roles, as romantic leading men in the hit films Dirty Dancing and Ghost, and as Orry Main in the North and South television miniseries. He was named by People magazine as its "Sexiest...

 plays the sleazy owner of the strip club where Jessica Biel

Jessica Biel

Jessica Claire Biel is an American actress, model, and occasional singer. Biel is known for her television role as Mary Camden in the long-running family-drama series 7th Heaven...

's character dances. Biel's character, Rose-Johnny, is a dancer and mother. Her son is in a coma. Eddie Redmayne

Eddie Redmayne

Edward John David "Eddie" Redmayne is an English actor and model. Redmayne won the 2010 Tony Award as best featured actor in a play for his performance in Red.-Early life:...

 portrays a mortician who falls in love with her. Kris Kristofferson

Kris Kristofferson

Kristoffer "Kris" Kristofferson is an American musician, actor, and writer. He is known for hits such as "Me and Bobby McGee", "For the Good Times", "Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down", and "Help Me Make It Through the Night"...

 plays the head of a corporate crime organization who tries to convince his former employee (Ray Liotta

Ray Liotta

[File:Ray Liotta is an American actor, best known for his portrayal of Henry Hill in the crime-drama Goodfellas, directed by Martin Scorsese and his role as Shoeless Joe Jackson in Field of Dreams...

) not to seek vengeance on his co-workers. Liotta's character also reveals to Rose-Johnny that he is her father. Forest Whitaker

Forest Whitaker

Forest Steven Whitaker is an American actor, producer, and director. He has earned a reputation for intensive character study work for films such as Bird and Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, and for his recurring role as ex-LAPD Lieutenant Jon Kavanaugh on the gritty, award-winning television...

, who also serves as a producer on the film, is a suicidal

Suicide

Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...

 ex-priest. Alejandro Romero plays a transvestite prostitute who shares an unexpected bond with the priest.

Cast

The cast includes the following:

• Jessica Biel
  Jessica Biel
  Jessica Claire Biel is an American actress, model, and occasional singer. Biel is known for her television role as Mary Camden in the long-running family-drama series 7th Heaven...
  
   as Rose-Johnny
• Forest Whitaker
  Forest Whitaker
  Forest Steven Whitaker is an American actor, producer, and director. He has earned a reputation for intensive character study work for films such as Bird and Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, and for his recurring role as ex-LAPD Lieutenant Jon Kavanaugh on the gritty, award-winning television...
  
   as Charlie
• Patrick Swayze
  Patrick Swayze
  Patrick Wayne Swayze was an American actor, dancer and singer-songwriter. He was best known for his tough-guy roles, as romantic leading men in the hit films Dirty Dancing and Ghost, and as Orry Main in the North and South television miniseries. He was named by People magazine as its "Sexiest...
  
   as Velvet Larry
• Ray Liotta
  Ray Liotta
  [File:Ray Liotta is an American actor, best known for his portrayal of Henry Hill in the crime-drama Goodfellas, directed by Martin Scorsese and his role as Shoeless Joe Jackson in Field of Dreams...
  
   as Jack Doheny
• Lisa Kudrow
  Lisa Kudrow
  Lisa Valerie Kudrow is an American actress, best known for her role as Phoebe Buffay in the television sitcom Friends, for which she received many accolades including an Emmy Award and two Screen Actors Guild Awards...
  
   as Sally
• Riki Lindhome
  Riki Lindhome
  Riki Lindhome is an American actress and musician. She is best known for television roles in shows including Gilmore Girls, House, The Big Bang Theory and United States of Tara and is also one half of the musical comedy duo Garfunkel And Oates...
  
   as Nicole
• Sanaa Lathan
  Sanaa Lathan
  Sanaa McCoy Lathan is an American actress and voice actress. She has starred in numerous movies, including the box-office hits Love & Basketball, Alien vs. Predator, Something New, and The Family That Preys. Lathan was nominated for a Tony Award for her performance on Broadway in A Raisin in the Sun...
  
   as Diana
• Eddie Redmayne
  Eddie Redmayne
  Edward John David "Eddie" Redmayne is an English actor and model. Redmayne won the 2010 Tony Award as best featured actor in a play for his performance in Red.-Early life:...
  
   as Qwerty Doolittle
• Kris Kristofferson
  Kris Kristofferson
  Kristoffer "Kris" Kristofferson is an American musician, actor, and writer. He is known for hits such as "Me and Bobby McGee", "For the Good Times", "Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down", and "Help Me Make It Through the Night"...
  
   as Randall
• Alejandro Romero as Lexus
• Chandler Canterbury
  Chandler Canterbury
  Chandler Canterbury is an American child actor.-Life and career:Canterbury was born in Houston, Texas, to Kristine and Russell Canterbury, and resides in Houston. He starred in Summit Entertainment's thriller Knowing for director Alex Proyas , alongside Nicolas Cage and Rose Byrne...
  
   as Billy
• Jeffery A. Baker as Slim

Reception

According to Variety

Variety (magazine)

Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...

magazine, "the heartstring-pulling contrivances of the film, set during Christmastime, go way over the top...Biel often overacts even more than her role requires." The magazine calls director Bui's "trumpeting of the power of love in the city of lonely hearts ... both ear-splittingly loud and tone-deaf at the same time" with "Jonathan Sela's color palette of nightmarish reds and blues and blinding whites, simply enforc[ing] the pic's borderline hysteria."

Rotten Tomatoes.com collected only eight reviews for Powder Blue with an average rating of 3.7 out of 10.