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by Max Braden Published: August 16, 2005
Official websiteRated R for language, sexual content, and drug material 1 hour 51 min. DVD Release: August 16, 2005  "The Ballad of Jack and Rose" premiered at the Sundance Film Festival this year and opened in very limited release this past March, largely unnoticed by the public. Starring Daniel Day-Lewis, written and directed by his wife Rebecca Miller, it tells the story of an idealist fighting a losing battle to protect his daughter and his land from the modern world. While well shot and acted, a brief glimmer of hope in the final scene doesn't keep this sad story from dampening an evening's viewing. The movie opens in 1986 on an unspecified East coast island (shot on Prince Edward Island, Canada), which has gone undeveloped and nearly uninhabited. Daniel Day Lewis plays Jack Slavin, an Irish immigrant who came to this place at the end of the 1960s and joined with other intellectuals to form a commune in the hopes of building a community that wouldn't tarnish its natural environment. His wife and companions long gone, Jack and his teenage daughter "Rosie" (Camilla Belle was 16 during filming) are the only remaining residents in this practical utopia. They are entirely self-sufficient, harnessing the wind to generate electricity, and providing their own food. Rose plants a landscape of flowers partially provided by Gray (Jason Lee) from the mainland. An engineer in training, Jack's house is smartly designed to conform with the hill into which it is set. Jack has raised his daughter isolated from the rest of modern life, schooling her at home. Modern civilization is threatening to encroach upon them, however. Developer Marty Rance (Beau Bridges) is building a set of model homes on the edge of Jack's land (one of which Jack vandalizes on the charge that the project endangers the wetlands). Rose is on the verge of womanhood, and it turns out that Jack is terminally ill with lung or heart disease probably due to his years of smoking hand-rolled cigarettes. It's the need for care down the line and a woman's presence that leads him to ask his girlfriend Kathleen (Catherine Keener) to move in with him and Rose, Kathleen's own two teenage sons in tow, as "an experiment, a new chapter." Jack has been seeing Kathleen for four months on the mainland without having told Rose. The move is also a surprise for Rodney (Ryan McDonald, "Halloween: Resurrection") and Thaddius (Paul Dano, "The Girl Next Door" and "Taking Lives), though less of one as Kathleen has apparently had a string of boyfriends since their separate fathers' departure.
The stress of his daughter's rebellion, the land developer's inevitable legal victory, and his burdening illness are a crushing weight on Jack. He's on the verge of losing everything. Will Rose come to respect the outlook he taught her? Will he sell out and give in to progress? The question is also posed in the upcoming movie "Crazy Like a Fox" in which a native Virginia plantation owner fights to keep his family's estate from being carved up by land developers. The developers are presented as cold, money worshipers with no consideration for the environment or people who inhabited and cared for the land before them. However, neither film challenges the defending underdogs on their own hipocrisy, as they rail against the idea of property ownership while claiming the land for themselves in the name of their own property owner predecessors. Longtime fans of Oscar winner Daniel Day-Lewis will enjoy his moderated performance, a step back from the larger than life character he brought to "Gangs of New York." Catherine Keener has always been an enigma for me, playing generic characters offhandedly such that I would never guess her for an actress if I met her in public away from the red carpet. Camilla Belle is good, but it's Ryan McDonald who has the more interesting character of the kids, and he plays it excellently. While cinematographer Ellen Kuras ("Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" and "Coffee and Cigarettes") has shot a beautiful film, using wide angle lenses to capture the breadth of the island's natural surroundings, writer-director Rebecca Miller ("Personal Velocity") draws such a bleak picture that it's difficult to enjoy the movie. Michael Rohatyn, who also scored "Personal Velocity", provides theme music in guitar and mandolin between tracks by Bob Dylan and others. Jamie Lawrence and Daniel Day Lewis are also credited with the original score production (no soundtrack is available at this time. A novelization is available.). SPECIAL FEATURES The movie looks and sounds great on dvd, but what you see is all you get. There are no special features, which is unfortunate because commentaries for a drama like this could provide some interesting insight on the story and its undertones. English and Spanish Subtitles are available, as are Scene Selections. The dvd has a movie trailers menu for this movie, "Nobody Knows," "Turtles Can Fly," and "From Dust to Glory." Grade: Movie: C DVD Content: D Recommended for Daniel Day-Lewis library fans, but not a must-have DVD. ...And Then What Happens? -Catherine Keener is the love interest for "The 40 Year Old Virgin" in theaters Aug 19; -Keener also appears in "Capote" Sep 30, and appeared in "The Interpreter," on dvd Oct 4; -Camilla Belle appears in "The Chumscrubber" in NY/LA theaters now, and stars in upcoming "The Quiet" with Elisha Cuthbert; -Rebecca Miller wrote the screenplay for the Gwyneth Paltrow drama "Proof" in theaters Sep 16; -Paul Dano appears in Gael García Bernal's upcoming drama "The King"; -Jason Lee stars in NBC's comedy series "My Name is Earl" this fall; -Jena Malone appears in Keira Knightley's "Pride and Prejudice" in November; -Ryan McDonald appears in Diane Lane's "Fierce People" next April; -Daniel Day-Lewis' next project is unannounced. Also on DVD this week: "Sin City" "The Brown Bunny" "The Wedding Date" "The Man Who Copied" "The Deal" |
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