This was possibly one of the most offensive movies I've ever seen. It is set in a town in which everyone is blonde, goes to the same church, sweeps their huge porches all day, and generally acts the part of good, clean Americans. It's the sort of town that might have Wilford Brimley as mayor. The only "troubled" kid (there must be one) loses his father and moves to (horror) Chicago to live with his aunt. Of course he then joins a gang, starts a life of crime, decides to use his mother's last name, Valdez (a sure sign of a troublemaker), and gets sent packing back to ideal land by his aunt. Well, he then wreaks havoc on the town until all the good Christians help him mend his ways. He shapes up, and we know this because he drops the clearly dangerous Valdez and resumes his good American name, Turner. Oy vey.
Reviews
2 Reviews
Personal Velocity
(2002)
Trite and shallow
14 July 2003
I am hard-pressed to explain the praise heaped on this movie, and must sadly choose the obvious. This film would never have been touted as it has if it were made by someone other than Arthur Miller's daughter/Daniel Day Lewis's wife.
Of the film's three vignettes--domestic violence survivor, conflicted editor, and confused runaway--the second is most telling. Greta, the failure to her family, craves success and power in the literary world and only needs to have her innate talents recognized to do so. Her skill is "trimming the fat" from others' writing. However, Ms. Miller seems to have had no such attention paid to her own work. The incessant and intrusive voiceover dialogue, I assume taken directly from her collection of short stories, features pseudo-deep lines that made me literally laugh out loud.
In addition, I found many of the camera tricks and plot devices amateurish and the characters shallow and essentialized. I cannot recommend this film, which basks in its own specialness and its claims to gritty reality. Ms. Miller is a tourist in the lives of the struggling women she attempts to portray.
Of the film's three vignettes--domestic violence survivor, conflicted editor, and confused runaway--the second is most telling. Greta, the failure to her family, craves success and power in the literary world and only needs to have her innate talents recognized to do so. Her skill is "trimming the fat" from others' writing. However, Ms. Miller seems to have had no such attention paid to her own work. The incessant and intrusive voiceover dialogue, I assume taken directly from her collection of short stories, features pseudo-deep lines that made me literally laugh out loud.
In addition, I found many of the camera tricks and plot devices amateurish and the characters shallow and essentialized. I cannot recommend this film, which basks in its own specialness and its claims to gritty reality. Ms. Miller is a tourist in the lives of the struggling women she attempts to portray.
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