Pubdate: Mon, 07 Nov 2005 Source: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (PA) Copyright: 2005 PG Publishing Contact: http://www.post-gazette.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/341 Author: Barry Paris, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 'PURE' HAS THE POWER TO SCARE STRAIGHT If you know any actual or potential heroin addicts, or someone perhaps thinking about just trying it, take them to see "Pure," director Gillies MacKinnon's relentlessly harrowing drama of a 10-year-old London boy's effort to keep his brother, himself and his addicted mother alive. The harrowing business starts with the first scene, in which the kid (played to perfection by Harry Eden) innocently brings Mom (Molly Parker) her breakfast-in-bed medicine: a lovin' spoonful of warm heroin in a syringe. It gets worse from there, with the family's constant invasion by pushers, police and needy neighbors. Our little hero's only reliable friend seems to be Keira Knightley (who is everywhere these days), and she's not only an addict but pregnant. It is a gritty slice of lower-class British life, indeed, and the performances are uniformly fine -- more so for being restrained in the face of the unrestrained realism of the script. Toward the end, when the boy is asked not only to survive on the street but to set up a major drug bust, one thinks this might all be a little too much pressure on the lad. For those who like their social commentary S&M rough and melodramatic, this is a powerfully full dose -- bordering on an overdose -- of the very "Pure" stuff. "Pure," in the Three Rivers Film Festival, is at the Regent Square at 9:30 p.m. tomorrow and 7:15 p.m. Wednesday. - --- MAP posted-by: Beth