Wildflowers

I am pleased to see such a well-made film come out of such limited resources. The boat where I lived was briefly featured in the scenes where the women jumped/were thrown into the water. Seeing my beloved Marin shot so carefully, so richly, was most satisfying.

The music was also quite touching and appropriate.

I liked the story, but one criticism is that the pacing was too languid. It could've had more ebb and flow in the timing, and perhaps a stronger story ellipse.

Otherwise, I'm happy to see the communal counter-culture accurately represented, by somebody who knows it from the inside. I look forward to seeing more work by Clea and Mellissa.

Wildflowers is a film that examines the aftermath of 1960's counterculture and the hippie movement. The free love sentiment produced many children who were raised unconventionally, and in some cases outright abandoned by their flower power parents. Cally (Clea Duvall) is one such girl, a wild tomboy who lives with her sometimes employed father ( Tomas Arana), and spends her days cavorting around with adolescents in similar situations. It's rare that Duvall gets a starring role, and she's absolutely wonderful here, steering Cally along with longing, resentment and just a bit of touching 'lost girl' emotion. She's an actress who needs to be cast in more stuff to showcase her talent, and not just thrown into lesbian roles because she identifies as such (grrr!). She steals the show and proves what a magnetic presence she is. Cally never knew her mother, and hope arises with the arrival of mysterious Sabine (Daryl Hannah) a woman old enough to be her mother and seemingly connected to her somehow. Sabine is a free spirit with a turbulent mindset, a result of the fragmented lives that people led back in that time period, often leading to wayward souls with no sedimentary existence to slide into after the show finishes and they realize they aren't as young as they used to be. Cally's story plays out beautifully, a girl just coming into her own and realizing who she is, via experimentation and intuition. She meets a drug dealer named Jacob, played by Eric Roberts. He's the friendly drug dealer, a cinematic archetype often sought after by filmmakers. Roberts could play an evil dictator and still come off like Prince Charming, he's just that likable, and as such is perfect for the role, a kindly rapscallion with lessons and advice for Cally which don't quite play out as one might think. In the end, it's Duvall's show, one of the only lead roles she has that is even out there to hunt down, such is the rarity of many films in her career. It's filled with terrific scenery, a whimsical yet real world aura and performances of emotional truth. Worth tracking down for Clea's fans (I'm proudly a die hard) and a delight for the casual viewer.

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.......

Cally (Clea Duvall) is a girl that was raised only by her father because her mother abandoned her. She lives an ok life up until she meets gorgeous Sabine (Daryl Hannah), an older woman that lives alone, could be her mother, lives as a free spirited painter and to which Cally feels strongly connected. With some help from her former boyfriend Jacob (Eric Roberts) she will manage to enter Sabine's life in an unexpected way.

WILDFLOWERS is a curious experiment in a way as it shows some sort of aftermath of the hippie movement of the 1960s. Overlooking this, is a decent drama about a girl in search of her true identity and origins. Hannah gives a very nice performance other than looking gorgeous, and Roberts plays a friendly drug dealer (a role unusual for him). Duvall steals the scene in a good way and the soundtrack is cute, nothing special.

In substance, a unique film that is even better than I was led to believe considering its rating of 5,4 and only 17 reviews. Not to be missed especially by folks who sometimes love to see something different.

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.