The Ballad of Jack and Rose

After not seeing much from Daniel Day-Lewis for a while, I was excited to see this film, though I was afraid it may not live up to what we expect from him. It was far better than I could have hoped, due not only to a terrific cast, but Rebecca Miller's writing and directing. The moments of humour ring with truth, and the characters have been developed so well, you feel voyeuristic. Daniel Day-Lewis is, as always, brilliant. The internal struggles his character goes through are poignant and completely believable. In fact, all of the characters in this story are a wonderfully realistic blend of black and white - all have virtues and all are flawed. Very thought-provoking and evocative. Visually beautiful, as well. This is a very underrated film and deserves far more recognition than it seems to have received.

This is a powerful and affecting film. I have a few quibbles about Ms. Miller's use of the camera and her editing, especially in the beginning as there were too many jerky cuts/unnecessary camera movements which were quite distracting. Thankfully they diminished as the film progressed.

Camilla Belle's as Rose performance was surprisingly nuanced and rich for such a young actress, she didn't have one false note and was totally believable as this "feral," innocent, yet disturbed teen. All the supporting actors were excellent, the characterizations and dialogue engaging and true and the emotional unraveling harrowing.

Day-Lewis' performance as Jack Slavin was outstanding. It hits you with such power that it left me flattened. While the credits ran I had to close my gaping jaw, peel myself off the movie chair and stumble up the aisle trying to absorb it all. Moment by moment he communicated paragraphs of information about Jack's multi-layered internal complexities with complete mastery and subtlety. The man's our finest film actor, period.

This movie has an original voice, it doesn't pander and despite some visual clichés, it follows its own unique internal logic. Definitely worth seeing, especially for the performances of Day-Lewis and Camilla Belle.

"Ballad of Jack and Rose" almost works as it examines the pitfalls of extreme idealism.

Writer/director Rebecca Miller sets up an archetypal situation, of an isolated Utopian who thinks he can create and control a perfect living environment with his daughter.

Daniel Day Lewis makes him too sympathetic, particularly his Pyrrhic politics, while his character's nemeses are too simplistic, even as he finally is defeated by mortality and human nature, or perhaps what some theologians would consider original sin. Lewis as the dad is even more creepily naive than J. M. Barrie in "Finding Neverland" in wanting innocent children to never grow up, even while indulging his own adult needs.

As with "Personal Velocity," Miller well captures conversational dialog within broken families, particularly across genders, and she is uncannily good at giving us young and older teens, as puberty is presented here as a palpable enemy.

Beau Bridges's good old boy developer is an overly stereotyped builder of ticky tacky McMansions; it would have been more interesting if he was threatening the wetlands with solar powered, energy recycling houses.

The continuing image of poisonous snakes is a bit heavy-handed symbolism of women as the cause for the fall of Eden. While Miller in a Q & A at a showing at the Landmark Sunshine Theater in NYC said she was inspired by the Gnostic Gospels, I saw ironic parallels with Lot's daughters, who coming from Sodom and Gomorrah have much in common with this daughter of a failed commune. Camilla Belle is excellent as a girl who gradually, albeit a bit scarily, discovers her powers, and her male counterparts are very believable as kids with their own problems.

Most of the audience was disquietingly dissatisfied with the ending and coda of the film, so much of the questioning to Miller focused on those aspects, as she claimed they were not after-thoughts or revisions. But the writing and characterizations shown did not support the changes she claimed the characters had gone through to justify the denouement.

An interesting comparison can be made with "Off the Map" which also views an alternative life style through the eyes of a budding teen age girl, but whose family is held together by an earth mother.

The Dylan and other singer-songwriter selections on the soundtrack are very effective.

This film disappeared locally right after its theatrical debut, so when IFC showed it recently, we rushed to catch up with it. Having admired its director, Rebecca Miller in all her films, we were right in seeing it in the wide screen of the main theater because that seems to be the perfect way to watch this intimate picture.

Ms. Miller takes us to an island off the coast of the continental mainland to set her story. As the film opens we watch Jack Flavin with his teen age daughter as they are perched on the roof of their strange cabin with the roof being made of lawn grass. They are father and daughter who have stayed in the land where years ago, had been a commune. We don't know what happened to Rose's mother, and nothing is clarified. We gather Jack and Rose have a special bond that at times border in incest.

Jack believes in keeping the island the way it is; development is coming fast and furious in the way of luxury homes being built in what probably will be a gated community where people of the same background and financial means will live, in sharp contrast as the commune idea that attracted Jack to the place. Jack, having inherited money from his father is financially secure, but still lives in a primitive way in a basic type of life. We see Jack as he takes pills; we realize he is not a well man.

When Jack takes a side trip to the mainland, he visits Kathleen, a single mother with two teen aged sons. Jack convinces her to come to live with him at the island. What Jack doesn't count is on Rose's reaction to the invasion to her space. In fact, the hatred for the invaders is instant. Katheleen, a kind woman herself, tries to reach Rose without any success. Rodney, one of the sons, has a weight problem, and has studied to be a hairdresser. Thaddius, is the rebel, who has an eye on the beautiful Rose.

Jack's basic intention for bringing Kathleen is to help him during his last days because he senses his days are numbered. When Thaddius suffers an accident, Kathleen takes the opportunity to go back home, leaving Jack and Rose to fend for themselves.

Ms. Miller takes an elegiac look at the situation making Jack into an almost Shakespearean character, that is, bigger than life. Jack is lovingly photographed in his many moods. The beautiful Rose's face shows all the emotions going on inside her. The director ought to be congratulated for involving us in the film and making us care for what will happen to Jack and Rose.

Daniel Day-Lewis is an actor who doesn't work much these days and that is our loss! As Jack, Mr. Day-Lewis has the rare opportunity to show his vulnerability and seems to be naked in front of our eyes because he doesn't hide the emotions from us. We know at any given moment what this man is thinking and what makes him tick. Mr. Day-Lewis gives a fabulous performance as he dominates the picture completely.

Camilla Belle is Rose. This young actress proves he is up to the task the director demands of her character. Not only is she beautiful, but she clearly exudes an innate intelligence that pays off in her portrayal of the girl who sees her world fall apart and has no way to stop what is killing her father.

Catherine Keener makes a valuable contribution to the film as Kathleen. She clearly is a gentle soul who is in love with Jack and wants to stay with him until the end. That is not meant to be because Jack realizes that in "importing" her to the island she gets in the way of the perfect balance between father and daughter.

Ryan McDonald makes the confused Rodney come alive. This young actor is a natural. The rest of the cast include minor appearances by Beau Bridges, Jason Lee, Jena Malone and Paul Dano, who plays Thaddius the other son.

"The Ballad of Jack and Rose" is clearly not for a wide audience because it's too intelligent to get a broader distribution, but the fans of Rebecca Miller will always cherish this film for what she brought to it and for the magnificent performances she got from her cast. The film is beautifully photographed Ellen Kuras and has an interesting score by Michael Rohatyn.

Any film starring the Daniel Day Lewis is a pretty safe bet. Although indisputably sexy, he grabs the roles which once were only for 'character actors', which in Hollywood meant past the best, not-bland, kooky, or downright ugly. This time, he's an ageing hippy from Motherwell (judging by his impeccable accent), living on in an abandoned commune with Rose, his daughter (Camilla Belle) who has been so well kept away from the corrupting influences of the outside world that she behaves like his clone, or sister, or lover. Nothing lasts for ever, and here it's Jack's failing health and Rose's growing up that threaten the status quo. Jack's attempt to patch up his way of life which is falling apart like the commune house itself, means importing his actual lover, who brings her two sons. Awkwardly for Jack, all these people have their own lives and aspirations, which is something he will have become unaccustomed to on his little island, and the clash leads everyone in directions none of them expected. A further complication is the building of a dinky housing estate which Jack's terrorist policies cannot halt, and again, the man responsible for this inroad from the modern world turns out to be a human, too. The story raises lots of questions about freedom and responsibility; not least through the fact that Jack can only live his pure, undefiled life because of inherited money. The plot is full of surprises and so are the cast, negotiating a multi-layered web of intrigue with as much delicacy as strength. Rebecca Miller clearly is a writer of singular imagination, and if this, her third film (although she started acting on-screen in 1988) is the way she intends to keep directing, then that's just fine. CLIFF HANLEY