White Bird

This movie was more about a teenager's obsessing with her breasts and sex ,then about her missing mother! Her mother's missing and given their history she assumed mom left dad, meanwhile all she can think about is sex with the detective that's on the case of her missing mother, and screwing her boyfriend who no longer desires her , which we find out why later on in the movie. For the movie to supposedly be about a woman gone missing it sure did not focus on it. It focused more on the girl coming of age and her desires, if that's the case it should have been titled A Coming of Age ,college years later she's literally sitting around her friends before she actually gets the idea that maybe, just maybe her mom didn't run away after all, maybe something did happen to her? Maybe dad is responsible? Just for her friends to tell her hey, we've been telling you that for years now! Really Columbo?

This movie is a hard movie to rate I feel, although many scenes are well orchestrated together as a movie it just doesn't make you feel anything, and the ending is clearly meant to be moving and shocking but it's really not.

Acting is... Okay, it's not bad but again the cast fail to make you sympathise with any of them, visually it's really good looking so that's always a plus but a lot of times the movie seems more focused on showcasing Shailene Woodley's breasts than anything else.

Now there's nothing wrong with them at all, in fact they are pretty neat however I'd prefer her keeping her clothes on if that meant that the director could focus on telling the story in it's best way as possible.

Listed as a drama/mystery/thriller but the drama that is feel too flat and superficial to ever hit an emotional core, even though it tries in the end but by then it's too late and based on how the characters interacted with each other previous having that boastful dramatic ending simply does not make much sense.

As far as the mystery well... sure there is some mystery I suppose but there are only so many ways it can end so it doesn't become very successful in that department either, plus most times it focuses on the teenager's sex-life more than anything else.

As far as the thriller goes, well even less there going on honestly, there's not many scenes of suspense here to be found.

No tbh it felt like this movie would work a lot better if they did it as a dark comedy and went a little more crazy with it, I think the movie could have succeeded at being that with just minor tweaks to the script.

I was debating whether to give it a 5 or a 4 but after writing down my thoughts here it has to be a 4 after all, there is talent involved but the movie just kinda feels a bit pointless.

"And just like that, my virginity disappeared. Just like my mother."

I did not make that quote up; Shailene Woodley's character (Kat Connors) actually says this while she narrates her life to a psychologist played by Angela Bassett. I wasn't familiar with director Gregg Araki's previous work, but I found this mysterious thriller problematic and at odds with itself. On the one hand it focuses on Kat's sexual awakening, but on the other we are introduced with some cartoonish characters like Eva Green's Eve Connors who seems to be playing a similar role as she did in 300 and Sin City. She gives a very campy performance, while Woodley is playing an authentic character. I just found the tone of the film very strange and didn't buy into the mix of styles. Araki is playing with genre conventions here mixing the coming of age tale with other familiar thrillers, but it didn't work for me because the dialogue at times is unbelievable and Araki seems to be leaving us false hints of what actually happened only to pull the rug under us with a twist at the end of the film. White Bird in a Blizzard is based on Laura Kasischke's novel of the same name and was adapted by Araki himself. I've never read the novel so I don't know if it has a similar tone, but the film felt surreal at times. There are some great looking scenes during Kat's dream sequences, but there isn't much more going on story wise.

It's funny because the plot of this film is what I thought The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby would be like. A woman goes missing and the film would revolve around the mystery behind her disappearance. Kat (Shailene Woodley) narrates the events of her mother's disappearance (Eva Green) claiming she had never been in love with her father, Brock (Christopher Meloni). Kat believes she simply got fed up with Brock and walked out on him. Her relationship with her mother hasn't been great either so she doesn't seem to mind her absence. She is comfortable with her current situation and doesn't think she even needs to talk to a psychologist about it. When she was young her mother treated her like a pet, but once she got older she began to resent her for her youth and beauty. Kat meanwhile is in a relationship with her next door neighbor, Phil (Shiloh Fernandez), who is her first love. Lately he hasn't seemed too interested in spending time with her, and when her mother goes missing, she and her father file a report with Detective Scieziesciez (Thomas Jane) who she finds attractive despite the age difference. Kat is very open with her two best friends, Beth (Gabourey Sidibe) and Mickey (Mark Indelicate) about her sexual life. There isn't very much going on with the plot since Kat doesn't think much about her mother's mysterious disappearance and we know how she feels because she is narrating the story to her psychiatrist. Things change when a few years pass and Kat returns home from college. She discovers that her mother's disappearance has affected her more than she realized and we begin to discover new elements about the mystery. This final act of the film plays out more as a traditional mystery movie and I was actually surprised with the final reveal. It is a shift of tone from what we had seen during the first half of the movie which played out as a coming of age sexual awakening tale. I can't recommend White Bird in a Blizzard, but it does have its moments. Shailene Woodley delivers a very strong performance (but I still think she was better in The Descendants and The Spectacular Now) and she is a talented young actress. I wasn't a fan of Eva Green's campy performance, but I have read some praise. Other than Woodley's performance I don't think there is much more worth recommending here.

After I watch a movie I sometimes come in here to see what others have to say. I'm not sure why I started doing that but I did. If the movie wasn't the best but I still feel like it was better than the very low rating it kinda makes me want to try to give it a better score. Unless I feel like it really deserves it. I guess the low rating might be why I don't even remember hearing about it when it came out. Maybe nobody was talking about it, I guess. After I read some of the reviews I still feel like it wasn't as bad as most think it was. I don't think it was bad at all to be honest. Obviously it's not getting any big nominations at the Oscar's but that's ok too. It held my attention all the way to the end and I was actually a little surprised by certain events. I'm not one sitting here trying to figure out a movie the whole time I'm watching either. I try to just let it play out however it plays out on it's own instead of beating it to the punch. So this is only my opinion as a normal 42 year old non professional IMDb user.

This movie starts off slowly. It is in the perspective of a gorgeous teenager who is solely concerned with her boyfriend. When her mom goes missing, she assumes that her mom kept her promise to leave her dad. As she recaps the relationship between her parents, the viewer is compelled to feel sorry for the wimpy father and agree with the teen's apathy towards her aggressive mother. In utter dismissal of her mom's abandonment, the teenager tries to focus on her boyfriend's reduced sexual interest. However, her intuition about her mother's disappearance keeps alerting her through inexplicable dreams. Then, when the teenager becomes an adult, things get GOOD! At the end, I realized that I really underestimated this movie. I had no idea this movie was going to be this good. I am glad I watched it and I want to see it again in order to catch some clues that I may have missed. The plot twist at the end REALLY caught me off-guard and I am still wondering if there was some hint throughout the movie that I missed. If anyone catches the hints, be sure to post them as spoilers.