Wildflowers

This is a beautiful film about real people spanning two generations -- that of the counterculture of the sixties, and the children they bore, and then reared or abandoned. There is a refreshing absence of sixties-bashing, stereotypical characters, phony hippie artifacts, false emotion, and all the other trappings of Indie or Hollywood films desperately searching for an audience. This is a novel on film. I'm grateful to the film-makers because I had despaired of ever seeing the lives we led ever portrayed realistically on film.

Having grown up in the Bay Area (where this film is set, just over the golden gate) in similar communal conditions with parents and guides of the same Vietnam-protesting vagabond/artist generation, I was stunned by the grace and accuracy of this film. The cinematography alone was breathtaking, and with substance to play with like the eucalyptus forests of Marin, the bookshelf lined cafe district of North Beach San Francisco, the misty Pacific coast, and Darryl Hannah (!), I can say without a breath of doubt they did something very magical a whole lotta justice.

Hannah's character reeked of a wild wanderlust and a seemingly disorienting excess of love and passion that it seemed as though the bounds of the film itself were keeping her in a captivity that was at the same time thrilling and unbearable. As Darryl Hannah grows older, her incredible grace and growling intricacies are all the more heart-stopping.

Though she plays a painfully awkward character, Clea DuVall performs her character wholly (alongside a perfect cast, including still-unknown Richard Hillman). I applaud the author for letting herself be drawn so harshly and honestly in the character of Cally, a seventeen year-old victim of a young parental generation that, though highly effective for the more curious and fervid of us, carelessly left to the wayside the sons and daughters that needed a bit more than just freedom and an echoing concert hall.

The cast is not the best and the story isn't either but I loved watching such fine work from Clea DuVall. Why is this woman not in more good films? She is so wonderful in this film, she is sensitive and touching, you can't keep your eyes off of her. Wonderful Clea wonderful! Thanks for such a inspiring job! Eric Roberts is quite good as well, he too suffers from getting into a good film at times. Daryl Hannah does not do her best work but all in all she was ok. Clea surely steals the film though and I gave a rating of 7 on her acting alone.

Below average drama that had good cinematography but was not up to par regarding script and screenplay.The story was promising though and the directing was almost good.The two lead actresses were average as well but still,this movie will satisfy big fans of the Marin county/San Francisco area culture and the subject matters regarding the Hippie culture from there and their New Age offspring.This movie should have been a TV or made for cable movie.Big fans of Darrly Hannah will likely tolerate this one as well.......

From the opening moments, this film promises to be unlike any of the slick, commercial "product" being made today. The style of the film harkens back to the turbulent, adventurous, somewhat dangerous times of the 1960s and the movie itself reveals how the events of days gone by continue to reverberate through the lives of the following generation. The photography is breathtaking; the editing is masterful; the performances far more than memorable. This is possibly one of Daryll Hannah's finest character portrayals. The story is a very private one -- yet it reaches out to touch the experiences of many who were swept up by the events of a certain time. It has the startling ring of truth throughout. The beautiful ... the sublime ... the tragic ... the heart-breaking. For those whose lives have spanned this period, this is an unforgettably compelling film journey.