This weird and improbable tale opens with a splendid overview of a newly built, upscale, gated community called Camelot, with over-sized houses miles and miles of sprinkled lawns, spotless curving streets, no trees, and a watchful guard packing a side arm. It's a phantasmagorically revolting panorama of modern life.
I watched it chiefly because I'd understood that Angie Harmon has a nude scene, and so she does, but it only lasts a second and she's on screen for less than five minutes.
But I was enthralled by the fey narrative that followed that bleak opening. The families are all bourgeois in their values as well as their life styles. But it's rather like "Blue Velvet" in that there are a horde of repugnant beetles and ants under all that Kentucky bluegrass that Sam Rockwell, the young and sweaty lawn man mows.
The story is told principally from the point of view of ten-year-old Mischa Barton. She's magnetic. She not the kind of stunning young beauty that arouses the pedophile in every normal man. I mean, she's not Brooke Shields. But she gives a wholly natural performance, despite the sometimes fairy tale dialog that the writers have stuck her with.
Barton befriends the modest, poor lawn man, Rockwell, for reasons that aren't immediately discernible. Rockwell looks the part of a poverty stricken working man. He wears sweaty clothes and lives in a tumble-down trailer somewhere in the woods. But the role he plays is constrained by his acting style. He slouches around like James Dean, and he's what some directors call, well, a "dung kicker actor," in that he seems so often to be staring down at his shoes, as if prodding a cow flop with the toe of his dirty boot. The growing bond between Rockwell and Barton is the essence of the plot and it doesn't quite clear the bar. Barton manages to convey the desperation behind her attraction, but Rockwell too often seems indifferent and even hostile. It's not entirely his fault. The script doesn't help. See "Sundays and Cybele" if you can, for an example of how to get this subtle kind of message across without weakening it.
The rest of the cast is adequate but stereotyped. Barton's immaculate father takes advantage of a chance to humiliate his gardener, and he's given to jumping to faddish conclusions. Kathleen Quinlan, a fine actress, is enclosed in the iron maiden role of nervous and hypocritical mother, who allows one of the local studs to gobble her up while she prepares a salad for the back yard barbecue. Two of the local studs appear periodically to ridicule Rockwell and do Quinlan when Dad isn't around. One of them owns a hostile Doberman that attacks Rockwell, who later beats to death for insufficient reasons. I'm not sure whether the canicide was intended to show that, like everyone else, Rockwell is imperfect, or whether it was a plot device to drive Barton and Rockwell away from one another for a while. At its climax, the film falls apart.
Barton is given to telling others the story of a witch, the imaginary Baba Yaga. She's not making it up. I don't know where a ten year old living on No Problem Drive in bone-dry Camelot Gardens got it, but it's an old Russian folk tale, complete with the magic comb and towel that saves the fleeing innocent victim. There are lots of versions and they're widespread throughout Europe and Asia. It's been written in Sanskrit, and it's one of the few tales that made the jump across the Siberian land bridge with the American Indians, if I remember correctly.
The writers have done some research, but the movie fails to cohere, despite some gripping scenes and despite the stellar performance of young Mischa Barton, who grew up to be ravishing and problem ridden. At that, though, its deliberate pace and thoughtful camera work and editing are a vast improvement over the parade of junk now coming out of a decadent Hollywood.
I watched it chiefly because I'd understood that Angie Harmon has a nude scene, and so she does, but it only lasts a second and she's on screen for less than five minutes.
But I was enthralled by the fey narrative that followed that bleak opening. The families are all bourgeois in their values as well as their life styles. But it's rather like "Blue Velvet" in that there are a horde of repugnant beetles and ants under all that Kentucky bluegrass that Sam Rockwell, the young and sweaty lawn man mows.
The story is told principally from the point of view of ten-year-old Mischa Barton. She's magnetic. She not the kind of stunning young beauty that arouses the pedophile in every normal man. I mean, she's not Brooke Shields. But she gives a wholly natural performance, despite the sometimes fairy tale dialog that the writers have stuck her with.
Barton befriends the modest, poor lawn man, Rockwell, for reasons that aren't immediately discernible. Rockwell looks the part of a poverty stricken working man. He wears sweaty clothes and lives in a tumble-down trailer somewhere in the woods. But the role he plays is constrained by his acting style. He slouches around like James Dean, and he's what some directors call, well, a "dung kicker actor," in that he seems so often to be staring down at his shoes, as if prodding a cow flop with the toe of his dirty boot. The growing bond between Rockwell and Barton is the essence of the plot and it doesn't quite clear the bar. Barton manages to convey the desperation behind her attraction, but Rockwell too often seems indifferent and even hostile. It's not entirely his fault. The script doesn't help. See "Sundays and Cybele" if you can, for an example of how to get this subtle kind of message across without weakening it.
The rest of the cast is adequate but stereotyped. Barton's immaculate father takes advantage of a chance to humiliate his gardener, and he's given to jumping to faddish conclusions. Kathleen Quinlan, a fine actress, is enclosed in the iron maiden role of nervous and hypocritical mother, who allows one of the local studs to gobble her up while she prepares a salad for the back yard barbecue. Two of the local studs appear periodically to ridicule Rockwell and do Quinlan when Dad isn't around. One of them owns a hostile Doberman that attacks Rockwell, who later beats to death for insufficient reasons. I'm not sure whether the canicide was intended to show that, like everyone else, Rockwell is imperfect, or whether it was a plot device to drive Barton and Rockwell away from one another for a while. At its climax, the film falls apart.
Barton is given to telling others the story of a witch, the imaginary Baba Yaga. She's not making it up. I don't know where a ten year old living on No Problem Drive in bone-dry Camelot Gardens got it, but it's an old Russian folk tale, complete with the magic comb and towel that saves the fleeing innocent victim. There are lots of versions and they're widespread throughout Europe and Asia. It's been written in Sanskrit, and it's one of the few tales that made the jump across the Siberian land bridge with the American Indians, if I remember correctly.
The writers have done some research, but the movie fails to cohere, despite some gripping scenes and despite the stellar performance of young Mischa Barton, who grew up to be ravishing and problem ridden. At that, though, its deliberate pace and thoughtful camera work and editing are a vast improvement over the parade of junk now coming out of a decadent Hollywood.