Iowa

I just saw this film at the Tribeca film festival and it had some great moments. It is reminiscent of Pulp Fiction, Blow, and Natural Born Killers, except it only takes place in a small town. Farnsworth did a brilliant job, especially considering it is his directorial debut and how young he is. There are some very gory scenes and it is definitely suspenseful. The camera work is very good. The beginning is a little slow, but most of the film is powerful. I have no complaints except that maybe there was a lot of stuff that was done for shock value. I am sure this film will get him some attention and more work. I recommend this to people who like films with drug and violent themes. There are some messages in it, but this is not a highly intellectual film. I don't normally write reviews, so I hope this is helpful.

-J

I saw this movie on a trip to Iowa, and not knowing much about Matt Farnsworth, the director (or the subject of meth, for that matter), I had no preconceived expectations, but walked away impressed and educated by a first-time filmmaker's jarring exploration into addiction.

Though Farnsworth doesn't quite explore the psychology of drug addiction as much as he could, the frenetic, visual representation illustrates the world of meth from a user's perspective, providing a sharp contract to the small town setting of the film. Farnsworth is capable in the lead role, but its Michael T. Weiss's turn as a sadistic, power-tripping sheriff that steals the show.

A couple of complaints: Fransworth occasionally goes for shock value, mistaking it for a message of rude awakening. And the hand-held, store-bought-video-camera interludes of the Iowa landscape seem forced and shlocky. The landscape means very little to the film (presumably less than Farnsworth thinks it does, since the movie is named for the state it resides in), as this story could be easily translated to any city (big or small) in the states.

I've read Farnsworth has been leading an anti-meth crusade, and while that's honorable, I hope (for selfish reason) that he has not abandoned directing for this higher calling. I can't wait to see what he does with his second go-round.

The week before I saw Iowa, I saw Art School Confidential, in which a pretentious student makes a film and can't decide whether he wants it to be art or violent exploitation. Iowa could be the film that he made. I can see elements of much better movies in Iowa - Spun and Natural Born Killers. However, in addition to artiness, both those movies had good character development and coherent story lines. Iowa. This movie stumbles to a preposterous end. I have to admit that it had consistency. This movie is bad from beginning to end and not particularly worse or better in any part. The actors all did what they could. Roseanna Arquette deserves better. She demonstrates that she is very talented, very funny, and very sexy. But why does she have to demonstrate it in this turd ball.

Well, I don't think the picture is as bad as most of the reviews make it out to be. . . but there's no denying that it's got problems.

Mostly, the problems are in the script. There's a plot - but not much story, and certainly not one that anybody could call plausible; it trots out any number of self-consciously strange and/or stereotypical characters, lines, moments, what-have-you and, by the end, it just hasn't added up to much in this department.

Sorry, but I couldn't care less about whatever "social ill" Farnsworth might be trying to address; there will always be a sector of the population willing to do just about anything to shred their brains, even if it requires running around corn fields trying to steal ammonia, or whatever it is those morons do. So, as a film, you won't find me calling "Iowa" "important." But, at a stylistic level, the picture is more than interesting and some of Farnsworth's choices in depicting a meth-head's wigged-out state are beautiful, hilarious, disturbing and - yes, I'm going to say it - inspired.

The acting is uneven, but that just may be a casualty of the afore-praised stylistic reaching. Look, Rosanna Arquette is a fine actress - but she's not very good here, so a discriminating audience member does have to ask, "What happened?" It's weird that Diane Foster manages a simplicity and grace that so few of the other actors can come anywhere near. For example, I might seriously consider whatever explanation Farnsworth could provide for Michael T. Weiss's over-the-top turn as a probation officer, but I doubt I'd ever buy it; It Just Doesn't Work.

Then again, it's the most alive and in the moment that I've seen John Savage appear in years. So go figure.

This is the sort of work that tantalizes, but does not promise - and that's okay; neither Farnsworth nor anyone else is required to make movies. So, whether or not Farnsworth has another film in him remains to be seen, but if he does, it seems pretty likely that it won't be bland pap. In an age when people are planning their lives around the latest installment of "American Idol," perhaps we could allow, not scorn, Farnsworth's legitimate and undeniably flawed film.

What is more, perhaps we could welcome, not berate, his energetic and sometimes blessedly idiosyncratic imagination.

"Iowa" wants to be "Requiem for a Dream" for Midwest meth, but it comes across as a hard R rated "Reefer Madness".

Yes, drugs are bad, and meth is horribly pernicious, as an addiction and how it destroys people, families and communities. But these characters who are either dumb or ridiculous and the eye-rolling plot won't teach that lesson to anyone.

While writer/director/star Matt Farnsworth has some charisma on screen, his partner Diane Foster plays a wincibly silly wide-eyed innocent corrupted by drugsas was already satirized by Susan Sarandon in "The Rocky Horror Picture Show". I really felt sorry for her for all the totally unnecessary nudity she was put through. It wasn't until the end of the film that I realized I was supposed to think these two were recent high-school graduates to explain some of their naiveté, as we are bombarded by their school photos, but if so, they even looked older than the folks on "The O.C.". While they have good chemistry on screen, they are a pale imitation of a "Badlands"-type couple.

The guest stars are badly used. Michael T. Weiss, who was so good in TV's "The Pretender", is completely ludicrous as a corrupt parole officer and his brutal violence is just plain crazy, as his character pretty much ruins any social significance for the film. Rosanna Arquette has to be even sleazier than she rolled around for David Cronenberg as a very low rent Livia Soprano. John Savage even has to mouth the old baby boomer excuses about I did pot but this is worse. A Goth chick shows up, with the odd explanation that she's a stripper from Des Moines. The obligatory Latino drug dealer appears - in Iowa?

With a limited budget, the interior view of meth use is portrayed quite vividly, with quite scary hallucinations. We certainly see them go crazy.

While the Iowa locations are used very well (including an amusing scene of a propane gas robbery), the accents and church references are confusingly Southern Baptist. Guns seem to be used by law abiding and law breaking citizens here more than in any inner-city drug-dealing movie.

The songs of Iowa's best known bard Greg Brown are used throughout, but oddly are not listed in the credits. I hope they were used with permission.

I caught this at its commercial run in NYC because I missed it at the Tribeca Film Festival where it got considerable-- and inexplicable-- buzz.