|
Review
|
The danger of films about "salt of the earth" types-- in
this case, middle America, the average beer-swilling,
mind-wasting, anti-intellectual crowd-- is that if the film
doesn't step back in some way and provide you with a take on
this crowd, the film can feel suffocating. You're trapped
with these people. They will waste your mind as well as
theirs. They'll buy you a beer, fix your car, help you put
an addition on you home, but they will never absorb, even
for one second, that life in the heartland is ever anything
but absorbing for everyone.
This is a fine movie. It's well-acted and well-intentioned,
and even moderately well-written. It doesn't do a lot of
bad things, which is good. It doesn't play coy. Willie
Convway's relationship with Natalie Portman, the jailbate
adolescent next door, both acknowledges an element of lust,
and and a note of teasing ambiguity in Portman's banter with
Willie.
Uma Thurman (Andera) does a turn as a stunning beauty all
the men adore. But she also helps Willie realize that his
girlfriend, Tracy, is pretty special, and would hold the
same attraction for some strange man as Andera does for him.
The ending is a bit insulting, unless, like me, you so
disbelief it that it has an inadvertant charm to it. It's
wraps up too neatly, to inconsequentially. But this is an
honest film.
|
