Jayne Mansfield's Car

People who have bottled up emotions for decades or have barely been introduced open up remarkably quickly in the course of just a couple of days in this incisive, well-acted, if unlikely multi-character drama reminiscent of Robert Altman.

It comes as a shock to realise the 1960's were now so long ago that elderly patriarchs Robert Duvall and John Hurt both served in The Great War (as Hurt calls it) and the emotional baggage their particular generation is carrying gives them more in common with each other than with their then still relatively young offspring (now ironically revered as the Greatest Generation) than their accents divide them.

The misleading title refers to a minor plot thread; and you'll have watch the film to find out what prompts Frances O'Connor (in a scene worthy of Russ Meyer) at one point into sportingly reciting 'The Charge of the Light Brigade' nude.

My wife and I concluded it was one film that doesn't fit into a good or bad rating format. We are ambivalent about encouraging or discouraging friends from seeing it. That ambivalent stance is indeed a helpful review. They're all definitely on their own with this one.

I was a bit shocked at how much negative press Billy Bob Thornton's latest effort has received in the mainstream critical media. It's been called racist, homophobic, grating, and stereotypically one-note. Perhaps these reviewers couldn't take the time to appreciate the delicate patina glazed onto the top of this heavy Southern Gothic brew, not only by some stellar star turns, but from Thornton and Tom Epperson's sly, knowing script that bravely refuses to villainize any of the array of characters, no matter how crass or pig-headed their behavior first appears.

I have to admit, I was a bit skeptical of Thornton when he first appeared with the break-out "Sling Blade," even though the short it was culled from was anything but slight. I thought he'd be one of these rural "artistes" who falls back on sentimentality and clichéd characters when he didn't have much to say. Jayne Mansfield's Car, however, proves that glib assessment was dead, dead wrong.

The strongest aspect of this film is it's script, which does what every extraordinary movie does well: drops you into another place and time that---at first glance, anyway---you'd ordinarily shrug your shoulders and walk away from, then gives you every reason you shouldn't: it's populated with people who are confused, conflicted, and multi-faceted to the point where they don't seem to recognize each other any more, even after living in the same house for decades.

The casting is impeccable and Thornton has an incredibly light-touch with all of them. Robert Duvall does what he does best: providing the anchoring figure of Jim Senior with an authority and gravitas that he can express with a lift of an eyebrow. His three sons are wrought over a nice spectrum of angst: Thornton's Skip, the ne'er do well middle son who did everything right but was always a bit too "off" to be dad's shining star. That honor went to Jimbo (Jim Jr., a ferocious Robert Patrick) who played closer to the mold but never saw combat as Skip and Carroll (Kevin Bacon) did, thus considering himself a failure. Skip and Carroll live with scars and resentments from their own tours of duty in WWII and Vietnam, respectively and their anti-war sentiments continue to draw them further from Duvall, in every sense of the word.

Even though the crux of the drama revolves around the return of Duvall's wayward recently deceased wife (Tippi Hedren, a pretty darn good corpse), who divorced him for Englishmen John Hurt 15 years before, the canvas of this film is really about the tortured relations between fathers and sons, and the cost of war and death and what it "means to be a man." The War angle is particularly intriguing in that it plays out in the heart of Alabama in the late-sixties, where the malingering odor of Vietnam melts into the residues of a century of warfare, the star of which is the ghost of the Civil War.

The culture-clash aspect is amusing and well-played, but not even remotely why you should see the movie. The script ensures you know the characters so well, that all that formulaic hicks-meet-Brits stuff quickly goes by the wayside.

Thornton and Epperson's script gives each character a suitable bravura moment and most hit them out of the park, in particular Thornton, in a touching monologue delivered to Frances O'Connor in the forest and Bacon, whose hippie malcontent faces off with Duvall with quiet dignity and aplomb.

This is not a film to hang on for forced drama, but it's one you'll have a difficult time turning away from and an even harder time leaving, from the place where you so unceremoniously were dropped.

Set in the small town of Morrison, Alabama, in 1969, the film has an all-star ensemble cast but I felt that the bizarre and dark family dynamics that play out, although well acted, just never congeal into an entertaining or meaningful story. Billy Bob Thorton directs here, and also has a lead role in the movie, as well as co-writing the screenplay with Tom Epperson.

It's set against the backdrop of the Vietnam War, which is still raging, and the hippie drug culture that emerged in the 60's. The plot revolves around the rich patriarch of the Caldwell family, Jim Caldwell, portrayed by the great actor Robert Duvall, getting a call from England that his ex-wife Naomi had died, and that per her wishes her new family will accompany her body for burial to Alabama. Naomi had traveled to England many years before, met a man there, and came back to Alabama to leave Jim and the family suddenly and remarry in England to Kingsley Bedford, played by another great actor John Hurt.

This will set up a number of sub-plots as the Bedfords meet the Caldwells for the first time. As mentioned, there's an all-star cast here, with the three sons of Jim being played by such screen notables as Kevin Bacon, Robert Patrick, and Billy Bob Thorton himself, while Jim's daughter is portrayed by Katherine LaNasa. Kingsley is accompanied to the States by his son Ray Stevenson and his daughter Frances O'Connor.

So with all this talent on screen what's the problem? Well for me, it was that the various strange scenarios that play out mostly didn't work, in my opinion. Some were humorous and interesting, while I thought the majority could be mean-spirited and trying too hard to be over-the-top and strange. The ultimate result for me was that, as mentioned, the movie just never meshed together into anything more than segmented pieces of a film.

"Jayne Mansfield's Car" is one of the strangest and most difficult to review films I have seen. To say it is uneven is a great understatement...but after completing it, I'm glad I did and think it's a decent film in many ways.

The story is set in the Southern United States in 1969. The plot is about two families coming together after the death of someone dear to them, though the underlying theme which comes to a head by the end of the film is Post-traumatic Stress Disorder and the scars of war on several generations of the two families.

This is a movie that really makes you want to turn it off after the first 10-15 minutes. This is because all of the characters are so incredibly crude, trashy and unlikable. I really think the movie would have worked better had they made these folk a bit less extreme....though through the course of the movie you do come to like and respect them more (which isn't hard!). My advice is stick with the film....it does get better.

So why would I give a 7 to a film with such awful and trashy characters? Well, the biggest reason is that the acting is so incredibly good...as you'd expect with Robert Duvall, John Hurt and Billy Bob Thornton. Plus, while the characters (particularly the one played by Duvall) are terrible in many ways, they do become more fully fleshed out and complex as the story progresses.