Stuck

A seemingly caring nurse parties hard at a bar after a hard day at work, takes ecstacy and on the way home hits a homeless man. Instead of seeking help she leaves him embedded in her windshield and parks the car in her garage. The next day she takes a cab to work despite the wounded man's plea for help. If the plot to Stuck sounds familiar that's because those events described actually happened in Ft. Worth early this decade.
The events in real life that inspired this film were even weirder but the movie turns it into a moral tale complete with subtext about working for a living, promotions and getting lost in the shuffle. Stuck follows the attempts of the man (Stephen Rea) to get help despite being impaled on the wiper blade and suffering a broken leg. The nurse (Mena Suvari really climbing into the body of an unlikeable character) paints herself in a tragic corner. She enlists the help of her dealer/boyfriend to get rid of the body. Only the guy's not quite dead or ready to give up. We think he may be saved when neighbors hear his cries or a Pomeranian wedges into the closed garage and starts licking the by now unconscious man's wounds.
Director Stuart Gordon gives us an ugly yet ripe portrait of desperation and places the audience in the middle of a real horrific situation, wedged in the passenger's seat if you will. As Rea weaves in and out of pain and consciousness his odds improve and then completely reset to zero. Gordon helmed such horror classics as Re-Animator and From Beyond so he knows how to mix pathos and humor and terror in the right amounts that produce a riveting movie.
At once intimate and yet grizzly Stuck will stick to your memory well after seeing the film (playing exclusively at the Angelika). So the next time you see someone driving and paying more attention to the cell phone in their hand, or perhaps drive past a stand alone single car garage with a closed door, you'll flash to the image of a braided Mena Suvari doing everything but the right thing.