Review of The Ballad of Jack and Rose (2005) by Alexander C — 07 Jul 2012

The whole point of a commune is to gather a group of people who want to make a difference in the future. They are tired of the way society's heading and want to turn it into a different direction. But what happens to the people who believed in these types of things even after they failed? What kind of lives do they lead? Jack was left by his wife before the film starts, and my guess is because she knew the world wasn't going to change with them.

It was time to adapt and move on just like everyone else in the commune. But Jack stayed with his daughter Rose. They live without electricity and separate their garbage. They still live naturally, just no one else is there to do it with them.

So what happens when the guy who has lived so passionately and desired a different life meets his end? Rebecca Miller tries to explore this but fails. She gets great performances out of already great actors, then can't save Camilla Belle's horrible acting.

Perhaps that's a little harsh. The character seems all over the place. Not all over the place in the way where she's innocent and doesn't know how to react to things, but she starts crying and jumping on things before they actually come up.

Nothing felt genuine and her lines were all shallow. The problem lies within the first act. No real buildup. We know these two are close and living on an abandoned commune together, but that's pretty much it.

So when Kathleen shows up with her two boys we don't really care too much about the problems that are obviously about to arise. And when the problems do come about they are all something that a person would have thought of instantly if they imagined this idea first.

There's no subtle building up to things, it just happens. For example, Rodney decides to cut Rose's hair instead of having sex with her and then literally directly after she looks at herself in the mirror she grabs a rifle and is prepared to shoot Kathleen.

Really? There is not one second where I thought Rose was a killer, or that Kathleen had driven her to such madness. You could argue that this is because Rose doesn't know how to interact with people, but I believe she was just pulled out of school 4 years before this.

I believe she's 15 and we hear Jack say she stopped going when she was 11. No, she's not that socially inept. The way she acts is as if she had never spoken to another person other than her father before.

We understand she has an Elektra complex but I still think it goes too far. After a while I started feeling like the movie was about what crazy antics Rose was going to do to drive away Kathleen instead of the emotional difficulties of a girl who just wants to be alone with her father before he dies.

The problem lies within the lack of emotional buildup. Miller gives us interesting characters and situations, but fails to deliver on almost every level. It's a shame, really. I liked the idea. Jack touched me at times, and I really liked Rodney's character.

And Kathleen had a good complexity to her. I just don't think anything ever reaches its potential.