Wildflowers
(2000)
Well, here we go again. Typical stuff told in a typical
way. Typically acted and typically filmed. I can't imagine
a reason to see the film other than it's a delight to
look at Clea DuVall ("Girl, Interrupted") for 97 minutes.
She smiles and frowns her way through this film praying
that the butcher's knife used for an editing tool doesn't
hit her square in the forehead.
DuVall is one of those round faced little freckled
tomboys who radiates as much masculine energy as feminine.
When she begins to stalk and obsess about Daryl Hannah's
ridiculous artist (remember "Legal Eagles"), we wonder
if she isn't physically attracted to the older woman.
The film has fun playing with us about stuff like that
before delivering DuVall into the bed of Eric Roberts.
But all to soon the crux of the film's plot becomes
apparent to everyone, even DuVall's Cally, and we are
forced to sit through 70 minutes of choppy editing to
see that all too expected moment. When it gets to us,
finally, it's as much anti-climax as climax.
The film is set in 1986. This doesn't work for a couple
of reasons. 1. DuVall has tattoos in some places on
her arms and legs. I don't think a 17 year old girl
in the podunk, hippy commune nee fish village she lives
in would have this many tattoos in 1986. 2. One of Cally's
little straight boyfriends wears one of her dresses
in the film's first 20 minutes or so. It's not transvestitism,
per se... but more like that grunge rock guy in a dress
thing Kurt Cobain did in, um... 1990. Guys didn't do
this in 1986. 3. blues Traveler plays a gig in the film.
Were they even together in 1986?
The only reason I can see to set the film in 1986
is that if Daryl Hannah was around in the hippy days
of 1968 when Cally was supposedly born it would made
Cally 32 and Hannah's artist, well, pretty damn old.
This film can't arrange suspension of disbelief to save
it's life. It doesn't try to.
You know, it's weird. While I was watching the film,
I didn't hate it. I liked watching DuVall. And the film's
editing walks that fine line between art and pretension
that I like so much. But the more I look back upon it
now, the more lackluster it all seems to me.
Writer/Director Melissa Painter doesn't so much tell
a story as she does manifest a summer in the life of
a 17 year old girl trying to find herself. It's a female
coming-of-age story. And if your starving for such fare,
this is certainly an option.
For me, though, the film was nothing more than a succession
of images, a lot of them nice California scenery, that
really did not touch me or affect me in any way. I didn't
care. I didn't not care.
Note:
One of the producers is Christine Vachon.
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