Mc Cormack starts off his little foray with what has become a standard indie filmmaker technique. He opens the film with a scene that later repeats itself in the movie; the difference is that later we get the point. In the opening, though, we're set curiously off balance. Obviously this is intentional, but it's nonetheless annoying. Perhaps I'm a nit-picker, but my motto is usually, "Make every image count." Here, they definitely do not.

We start out in the midst of marital strife. Phil (David Aaron Baker) and Anna (Mary McCormack) aren't getting on any more. In fact, their marriage has turned positively icy. No sex, no conversation, no love perhaps. Anna turns to her shrink (Stockard Channing), who is so self-centered and screwed up herself that it's a frustrating wonder as to why Anna continues seeing her. When her shrink doesn't help, she turns to her brother Jeff (Rob Morrow), whose uncontrollable sputtering Tourette's Syndrome behavior utterly belies the cushy, six-figure job he appears to hold. Rob Morrow does deserve praise for going out on a limb in his portrayal; the trouble is that his behavior in the film simply makes no sense.

The same could be said for Phil's chain-smoking best bud John (Campbell Scott), who acts like he's in a David Mamet play, even though everyone else plays it low key. John thinks Anna may be having an affair, so he suggests that Phil hire a high society detective (Peter Gallagher), who turns out to be a mod Frenchman with a serious Gallic attitude. The problem here becomes obvious very quickly. McCormack writes awfully interesting characters, but he doesn't know what to do with them. So, he basically lets them run wild. The result is something of a free-for-all masquerading as a plot line, which is held together by a supposedly subtle, "surprise" reveal half way through the film that show invigorate the movie, but more likely will produce a yawn.

Then, there's the issue of the sound design, which more than one person complained about. McCormack's take on his story is that it exists in a world on the verge of chaos, Call it the New Millennium or just free-floating lunacy, but the movie is awash in a cacophony of sound and movement. Too much so, I'm afraid. What comes out of it is a nerve-wracking sensation of instability and discomfort. Again, surely a specific filmmaker's decision and, again, a very bad one. If I have to sit through a two-hour movie, I want to hear what the characters say, not be assaulted by "artsy" noise.

Oh well. That's what independent filmmakers do. They take risks -- and good for them. The sad fact is that the risks don't always pay off and in Other Voices, the gambles with wildly skewed characters, sound effects and arbitrary story telling undermine a film whose themes and basic plot hold a golden kernel of possibility.