Review of Georgia Rule (2007) by Markb. — 13 May 2007

Georgia Rules are household commandments set down by conservative-but-feisty Hull, Idaho resident Georgia (Jane Fonda), and include the notion that while dropping f-bombs in everyday speech is more or less acceptable, using the Lord's name in vain (even very mildly) earns you a mouthful of Lifebuoy.

She left out a couple of important guidelines relating to moviegoing that would serve all of us well here, starting with the Cleopatra Addandum, which advises that movies in which the offscreen misbehavior of one or more participants (in this case, Lindsay Lohan's hard-partying antics) fills the tabloids and trades are usually best avoided.

Then there's the Garry Corollary, stating that if your film deals with such extremely sensitive topics as alcoholism, pathological teen promiscuity and child molestation, the man who brought you Laverne & Shirley is NOT your go-to guy.

Garry Marshall, a specialist in mostly forgettable feel-good fluff, has knocked it out of the park twice in 15 tries: Pretty Woman is a genuinely charming modern-day adult fairy tale, and Nothing In Common, a tremendously perceptive comedy-drama about an adult's responsibility toward his parents that was the first big-screen indication that Tom Hanks was more than just a comedian as well as a fine swan song for Jackie Gleason, was also one of the most underrated American movies of the 1980s.

Georgia Rules, on the other hand, ranks right down there at the bottom of the Marshall Meter with 1994's astonishing S & M-com Exit to Eden...and at least THAT one wasn't going for warm and fuzzy.

Georgia Rule has dozens of problems but if I had to pick a central one it would be the character of Hull visitor Rachel, a truly odious, sexually sadistic little tease who in many other movies would be the villainness, but whom Marshall and screenwriter Mark Andrus (As Good As It Gets) perversely try to pass off as sensitive, funny and sympathetic--the latter because she was sexually abused by her stepfather at age 12 (or was she?) However, it would be amiss to go without mentioning this movie's blatant, bigoted Mormon-bashing and stereotyping (the LDS guys are unbelievably clueless and naive; the girls are stuck-up snobs) which is so pervasive that if Mitt Romney becomes our next President, he might do well to go over Marshall's, Andrus's and producer James G.

Robinson's last 25 years of IRS returns with a barbershop full of fine-toothed combs. (That would help him get MY vote!) Fonda and Felicity Huffman (who plays Lilly, Georgia's daughter and Rachel's mom) triumph over the material with excellent performances; Marshall is often credited for working well with actresses, and sometimes this is deserved (if anyone did more to make Julia Roberts an incredibly beloved actress and superstar, I'd like to know who).

..but honestly, how much coaching do two such consistently fine performers as Fonda and Huffman truly need? Lohan's portrayal is a lot more problematic; given the extent and notoriety of her behavior over the last couple of years (at the rate she's going it's just a matter of time before she really runs afoul of the law just like Paris Hilton, and unfortunately just as many people polled will think she should also do time) it's hard to tell whether, in playing this deeply troubled but genuinely nasty young woman, Lohan is really acting or just "playing herself".

If the latter is the case, I really miss the sweet kid from Freaky Friday, Mean Girls and, in her childhood, the Disney remake of their Parent Trap, and I hate that a system that can be so hazardous to actresses at such a tender, formative age seems to have completely eaten her alive.

That's truly sad...