This is a brave, brave film that doesn't give in to stereotype at any point. There are no heros. There are no villains. Bad things happen due to people being thoughtless, people jumping to conclusions, people getting drunk, people doing things that people will do. Thora Birch as the heroine is conflicted and sees the world better than she sees herself, as she moves through a plastic fake world that is America that hides reality underneath a sea of lies. It does not have a happy ending. Some people will throw things at the screen when they see the ending. Others will realize that this is how it must end.
Thora Birch is excellent, as is Steve Buscemi as the nerdy loser whose life she inadvertently ruins when she gets drunk and says and does things she shouldn't have. Scarlett Johansson isn't much more than decoration here for Birch to play off of, but necessary decoration. In the end there is the transit bench with "Out of Service" written on it, and a 1970's style bus appearing out of nowhere, going... where? But does it matter, in the end?
Five herrings out of five.
-- Badtux the Movie Review Penguin
Sounds like an excellent film. Fun - not so much.
ReplyDeletei love that movie too. i really dug the scene where buscemi is in this bar where a legend is playing and he's the only one there that fucking knows what's being played.
ReplyDeletei love blues.
buscemi says
he's playing ragtime.
In a world where a Connecticut preppie is seen as a "cowboy" and a pig farm is seen as a "ranch", that scene where the genuine legend is ignored and, shortly afterwards, a fake is adored was so much real life that I could only shake my head. But we do love our lies here in the United States of Delusion...
ReplyDelete