Limbo (film)

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Limbo is a 1999 film written, directed, and produced by American filmmaker John Sayles. Set in an unnamed city in Alaska, the film follows three main characters: Joe Gastineaux, Donna DeAngelo, and her daughter Noelle DeAngelo. In the United States, it was the first film released by the resurrected Screen Gems unit of Sony Pictures Entertainment.

[edit] Plot outline

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Joe Gastineaux is a former high school basketball star and fisherman who works as a handyman. Donna DeAngelo is a lounge singer. Noelle is Donna's daughter and a coworker of Joe's.

The first half of the film is a relationship drama as Joe and Donna become romantically involved and Donna negotiates a troubled relationship with her daughter. The second half of the film incorporates elements of a thriller. Joe's dissolute brother takes the three along on a boat trip. The brother is murdered by drug dealers to whom he owes money and Joe, Donna, and Noelle are forced to seek shelter on an uninhabited island. The film takes its name, in part, from the uncertainty of their fate on the island.

The question whether the open ending of the film is appropriate has been discussed a lot among critics and filmgoers.

Like most John Sayles films, Limbo combines a focus on relationships between characters with a portrait of economic and class relationships in a changing community.