Parker Posey in "Personal Velocity".

Rebecca Miller's new film "Personal Velocity" tells the story of three likeable, flawed, quirky women. Parker Posey stars in the middle and most compelling section: Greta. Greta is a food editor. She's got a kind, easy-going husband and a comfortable life that will all come apart when Greta realizes she can't keep her ambitious nature down. Greta gets assigned to edit the book of a hot young novelist and buys a pair of Alligator shoes.

"She's going to be successful," Posey says. "This is the start of her career and she is going to be a successful woman."

Greta is a terrific role for Parker Posey. "She is what I look for in a part," Posey said. "A fully rounded character." Posey's Greta is insecure and confident, plain and gorgeous, caring and selfish, and most important, smart and fully aware of her intelligence: a woman coming into her own. When preparing for the role, Posey and Rebecca Miller focused on Greta's level of consciousness.

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"She's at that point," Parker said, discussing her character. "Twenty-seven, twenty-eight, and she's doing these things, saying these things that are not exactly self-realized, not conscious. She's just beginning to form herself. She's got her first hit of confidence about what she does for her living. She wants to be respected. At the same time she's in a relationship that like an old, dead marriage. She and Lee might as well be in their sixties. So Greta's repressed a lot of her sexuality, which comes out in her denial of her infidelity to her husband. She keeps her narrative separate, and I'd say that that's part of youth, of being immature, or guilty, you know, all those things. It's like there's a little internal clock. She's hit that time; something kind of clicks and realizes she just can't go on. She becomes conscious."

Posey can next be seen in "A Mighty Wind" directed by Christopher Guest, who also directed her in "Waiting for Guffman" and "Best in Show. "It was amazing," Posey said. "I had to learn how to play the mandolin. It was so much fun. I love those guys. Everyone takes pictures on that set."

But what would Parker really like to do next? "Something really dramatic," Posey said. "Real tragedy. I can do comedy, so people want me to do that, but the other side of comedy is depression. Deep, deep depression is the flip side of comedy. Casting agents don't realize it but in order to be funny you have to have that other side."

"Personal Velocity" opens in theaters on November 22. The film won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance Film Festival. Until Posey sinks her teeth into the tearjerker role that will launch her career into the next dimension, it's a delight to see Posey at her independent best.