American Venus

Another cheap production with an absurd plot and missing an ending due to poor or lazy script writing. Even with Rebecca's well known ability to play a crazy, this film still falls flat. Save your time and avoid. Just plain dumb.

Rebecca DeMornay is a talented and beautiful actress. She is highly under utilized in the film world. In this film, she plays a gun loving and carrying mother of an adult daughter. When Jenna bails on her life at home, mother goes to find her in beautiful Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Jenna is happy and living there with roommates and a boyfriend. When her mother finds, she is determined to make her come home to America and get a gun. Without a gun, she feels naked. Canada has different rules for foreigners buying guns. She will try to buy a gun legally and illegally. The cast is fine but not familiar to me. I would have loved more location shots though since the city is beautiful. The script could have been better. The ending is abrupt.

Jenna (Jane McGregor) is a teen competitive figure skater coached by her obsessive mother Celia (Rebecca De Mornay). At the Nationals, she is overwhelmed when a younger skater delivers a near perfect skate as the heir apparent and she fails in her own skate. She decides to quit despite her mother's vehement disapproval. Years later, Celia visits her daughter who is attending college in Vancouver. She is gun-obsessed but her gun gets confiscated at the border. She is desperate to buy another gun.

I didn't expect the subject matter. When the movie starts, my main complaint is McGregor's age. I thought this is a movie about a mother daughter relationship. Then the real movie starts. The border crossing is a little funny but it's actually a wake up call for the audience. The subject matter is about to change. I'm not saying that Celia is somehow representative. I'm not saying that it is somehow profound. I am saying that it is daring to go full out with this premise. I got concerned about finding the gun in the bathroom but I love what it turns into. This is not that great but the story is as compelling as Natural Born Killers. It's just not a cool depiction of violence.