Review of Leaves of Grass (2009) by Teague T — 02 Apr 2010

Some films are meant to be taken seriously. Of those, the good ones have characters that we can identify with. We lose ourselves in their stories, we imagine ourselves in their shoes. When the film is great, it is only in retrospect that we realize what has happened to us and we slowly come back to reality. Leaves of Grass is not one of those movies.

This film is very hard to pin down (yes, that's a challenge). Is it a stoner comedy? An ode to the intelect? A Tarantinoesque blood bath crime thriller? Perhaps a love story? Maybe it's all or none of these, that's just not clear, but there is one label that seems to work just fine: great. I'm not the only one that will think so, but I will be in the minority. I don't want to sound pompous, but there is a reason for this. This film is subtle and much of it will be lost on the average moviegoer. I can't really offer a solution to this, but I will offer you this: there is a centuries old war between poets and philosophers, between reason and passion. One of the film's many themes will make more sense with that in mind.