Review of White Bird in a Blizzard (2014) by Patrick C — 11 Jun 2015

Gregg Araki is back. The indie director hasn't made a film of any significance since 2004's Mysterious Skin which launched the film career of Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Mysterious Skin probably stands as his best work, and it's still almost impossible to recommend it as the lead characters recall the child abuse they suffered in graphic detail. In his early exploration of gay cinema (The Living End; The Doom Generation; Nowhere), Araki was never afraid to leer at the most taboo subject matter while usually throwing copious amounts of blood at the screen in the form of shotgun beheadings and Nazi castrations. Mysterious Skin showed a departure from the gore, and White Bird in a Blizzard is certainly now his most accessible work to date.

When her mother played by the always fascinating Eva Green disappears, Kat Connor (Woodley) recalls her past troubles with her family's unhappy matriarch, consoles her depressed father, and explores sex with local hotties and the older police detective working the missing person's case (Thomas Jane). Shailene Woodley is all the rage right now as the star of YA blockbusters like Divergent and The Fault in Our Stars. Here she gets a more adult role - like the one in Alexander Payne's Oscar-nominated The Descendants - which suits her better as an actress. She also gets naked! Risky business for young starlets but it worked wonders for Anne Hathaway's career (Brokeback Mountain).

It's all typical Araki though with some scenes working better than others, uneven acting, and a few perv-y moments thrown in just to remind us this is indie cinema. But it's a shame this filmmaker will probably never be given a chance to work mainstream. The potential has always been there.