Spinning Into Butter

You know, there could have been a decent story here, but so many "isms" and trite dialog (like a very bad David Mamet play "Oleanna" about sex discrimination....very trite and pointless. Forced dialog that NEVER occurs in real life does not a film make.

Beau Bridges as Dean of a Vermont college, reciting the story of "Little Black Sambo"?.....it doesn't ring true and SJP while sometimes good, overdoes the fake agenda here...:"I used to be a decent person, then avoided black men on the subway".... Have we regressed yet again to 1970?.

The final hour of this film is simply awful for anyone with an I.Q. who has lived or worked in a city, any city in a real world. Frankly, I am tired of SJP and that "Carrie Bradshaw" is representative of NY women who are caring, open, emotional, but get hurt when they wear their heart on their sleeve. Trite and awful. The audience deserves better.

Sarah Jessica Parker steps away from her Carrie Bradshaw character and plays a Dean of Students at a small liberal arts college in Vermont. The film has an all star cast including Beau Bridges and Miranda Richardson as the other deans. James Rebhorn is always welcome on screen as the President of the College. Mykelti Williamson plays a local reporter. The story about a racism incident at the college creates a stir among the faculty and students. Parker's Dean character faces her own issues about race and her history in Chicago at a largely African American college, Lancaster College. In this film, Parker does a decent job but the script is weak and poorly adapted from the stage. Parker has her best moments when she confronts her racist views and feelings. While the cast is all star, the script weakens the film. To me, not much happens at all.

This movie's concept is thought-provoking, however the execution of the point it is trying to make gets lost somehow. In some way I think it is the actors chosen for this film -- maybe it would've worked better if they were mostly unknowns. Because what the viewer needs here is the ability to understand that the characters depicted in the story are not stereotypes. And yet they are portrayed as such to a great extent and it just didn't add up to the kind of depth that ought to be there to sufficiently address racism. Anyway the movie felt stunted, and for some reason I found it hard to believe that the actors themselves, for the most part, believed what the characters they portrayed were saying. Yes, there was the attempt to portray how hypocritical the college professors and professionals were and how sensitive the minority students were to prejudicial slights. I just got the impression that something more intrinsic to the entire situation was missing.

Interestingly Sarah Jessica Parker did eventually come across as believable. Everyone else i thought was on another planet and it all felt disjointed.

This film is not bad per se -- the story itself is intriguing in that it does try to depict racism. I found it hard to believe on some level that a college would react so oddly.

In "Spinning Into Butter," a small ivy-covered college in Vermont, known for its liberal views and tolerant policies, is rocked by a racial incident aimed at a recently enrolled black student. Soon the incident has exposed a vein of racism running through the faculty and student body that has long lain hidden beneath a veneer of white liberal guilt and political correctness.

Sarah Jessica Parker plays Sarah Daniels, the newly arrived Dean of Students who has to take the lead in quelling the crisis, but who may have issues of her own regarding race to deal with. Veteran actor Beau Bridges also appears as a fellow dean.

Based on the play by Rebecca Gilman (who co-wrote the screenplay with Doug Atchinson), "Spinning Into Butter," directed by Mark Brokaw, starts off with the best of intentions, pinpointing some of the complexities inherent in an issue we too often sweep under the rug in an effort to avoid dealing with it. And the movie does an effective job highlighting the irony that sometimes it is the very well-intentioned efforts we make to try to alleviate the negative effects of racism - quotas, forced integration, segregation in the name of "cultural pride" etc. - that wind up actually exacerbating the problem in the end. The film also makes the rather provocative case that even in a mostly white, socially liberal enclave like Vermont, racism still exists, though since it is rooted more in the subconscious, it is more likely to manifest itself in covert rather than overt ways there. It's a daring and risky theme and one the filmmakers should be congratulated for at least having the courage to bring out in the open.

However, noble intentions notwithstanding, the heavy-handed approach the movie takes towards the topic ultimately robs it of much of its effectiveness. Too often the characters sound less like real people than like spokespersons for individual causes. Moreover, the staging of events is frequently awkward, the drama needlessly contrived. And the resolution of the conflict, quite frankly, borders on the preposterous. Additionally, the performances, with the exception of Parker's, lack any mitigating trace of polish and finesse.

There's no denying that there are moments of quality scattered throughout the film, and that the autumnal New England scenery is absolutely lovely (though a very small part of the exteriors were filmed - seamlessly, I might add - at the high school in Los Angeles where I work). Yet, sad to say, "Spinning Into Butter" emerges as probably the clunkiest and most self-satisfied examination of race relations in America since the urban drama "Crash."

From the opening credits, this movie made me cringe at almost every scene. The movie centers around a racial incident on the campus of a fictional small rural Vermont college. Of course the college stands in as a symbol of a majority White community, and the racial incident unavoidably escalates into a small media frenzy. Thus the stage is set for all the players to act and reveal their views on the issue of race. Of course the viewer immediately sees through the "characters", and starts interpreting the views of the writers and producers themselves. That's the whole issue about race: people are very aware of the differences between their views and other people's views about it. So, as the story unfolds and more and more stereotypes about race and stereotypical reactions to race are paraded out, I asked myself, who does this movie serve? Who does this movie not offend? It was obvious the script tries to represent both sides of the fence, in an "equal-time" manner. Amazingly enough, they even voiced the politically incorrect side, in a qualified way. Everyone in the movie is a caricature of their race. Largely, though not entirely predictable as you watch it, it still fits the stereotype of how race is allowed to be discussed in film. But ultimately, outside any moral of "racism is inevitable", or "racism is bad", the film makes no point itself. Sure, it might succeed on the level about getting "people to talk about race", but as the movie shows, why is that such a great idea?