''Spinning Into Butter'' is a 2007 drama film written by Rebecca Gilman and Doug Atchison and loosely based on Gilman's play of the same name. It was directed by first-time director Mark Brokaw and produced by

Sarah Jessica Parker Sarah Jessica Parker (born March 25, 1965) is an American actress and television producer. In a career spanning over five decades, she has performed across several productions of both Sarah Jessica Parker filmography, screen and stage. List o ...

, who also stars in the film. ''Spinning Into Butter'' was sold for distribution

Cannes Film Market Cannes (, ; , ; ) is a city located on the French Riviera. It is a commune located in the Alpes-Maritimes department, and host city of the annual Cannes Film Festival, Midem, and Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. The city is ...

on May 17, 2007 and opened in the U.S. in March, 2009. The film concerns

political correctness "Political correctness" (adjectivally "politically correct"; commonly abbreviated to P.C.) is a term used to describe language, policies, or measures that are intended to avoid offense or disadvantage to members of particular groups in society. ...

and racial identity.

Plot

When a New England

liberal arts college A liberal arts college or liberal arts institution of higher education is a college with an emphasis on Undergraduate education, undergraduate study in the Liberal arts education, liberal arts of humanities and science. Such colleges aim to impart ...

experiences a

hate crime Hate crime (also known as bias crime) in criminal law involves a standard offence (such as an assault, murder) with an added element of bias against a victim (individual or group of individuals) because of their physical appearance or perceived ...

against one of its few black students, the school's dean of students must respond publicly to the incident while privately confronting her own latent

racism Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one Race (human categorization), race or ethnicity over another. It may also me ...

and

prejudice Prejudice can be an affect (psychology), affective feeling towards a person based on their perceived In-group and out-group, social group membership. The word is often used to refer to a preconceived (usually unfavourable) evaluation or classifi ...

Cast

as Sarah Daniels *

Miranda Richardson Miranda Jane Richardson (born 3 March 1958) is an English actress who has worked in film, television and theatre. After graduating from the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, Richardson began her career in 1979 and made her West End theatre, West ...

as Catherine Kenney *

Beau Bridges Lloyd Vernet "Beau" Bridges III (born December 9, 1941) is an American actor. He is a three-time Emmy Award, Emmy, two-time Golden Globe Award, Golden Globe and one-time Grammy Award winner, as well as a two-time Screen Actors Guild Award nomine ...

as Burton Strauss * Paul James as Simon Brick * Mykelti Williamson as Aaron Carmicheal * Victor Rasuk as Patrick Chibas *

Betsy Beutler Betsy Beutler is an American actress. She is known for her role as Katie Collins on the NBC/ABC series ''Scrubs_(season_8), Scrubs'' (2009), the related webisode series ''Scrubs: Interns'' (2009), and her roles in ''The Black Donnellys'' (2007), ...

as Lee

Reception

As of March 2018, the review aggregator website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...

reported that 16% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 32 reviews with an average score of 3.6/10. The site's consensus of reviews was: :"Both leaden and stilted, ''Spinning Into Butter'' is an unsubtle drama with stagy direction and lackluster dialogue."

References

External links

* 2007 films 2007 drama films Films about race and ethnicity American drama films Works subject to expurgation Films set in Vermont 2007 directorial debut films 2000s English-language films 2000s American films American films based on plays Films produced by Norman Twain English-language drama films {{2000s-drama-film-stub