Wildflowers

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.

Having grown up in the Bay Area (where this film is set, just over the golden gate) in similar communal conditions with parents and guides of the same Vietnam-protesting vagabond/artist generation, I was stunned by the grace and accuracy of this film. The cinematography alone was breathtaking, and with substance to play with like the eucalyptus forests of Marin, the bookshelf lined cafe district of North Beach San Francisco, the misty Pacific coast, and Darryl Hannah (!), I can say without a breath of doubt they did something very magical a whole lotta justice.

Hannah's character reeked of a wild wanderlust and a seemingly disorienting excess of love and passion that it seemed as though the bounds of the film itself were keeping her in a captivity that was at the same time thrilling and unbearable. As Darryl Hannah grows older, her incredible grace and growling intricacies are all the more heart-stopping.

Though she plays a painfully awkward character, Clea DuVall performs her character wholly (alongside a perfect cast, including still-unknown Richard Hillman). I applaud the author for letting herself be drawn so harshly and honestly in the character of Cally, a seventeen year-old victim of a young parental generation that, though highly effective for the more curious and fervid of us, carelessly left to the wayside the sons and daughters that needed a bit more than just freedom and an echoing concert hall.

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.

Well there goes another hour and a half down the drain with nothing to show for it. I like quiet films as much as anybody but this film was soooooo quiet that it would be a great alternative to taking a sleeping aid. I did like the photography in this film but that is all I did like about it.

The cast is not the best and the story isn't either but I loved watching such fine work from Clea DuVall. Why is this woman not in more good films? She is so wonderful in this film, she is sensitive and touching, you can't keep your eyes off of her. Wonderful Clea wonderful! Thanks for such a inspiring job! Eric Roberts is quite good as well, he too suffers from getting into a good film at times. Daryl Hannah does not do her best work but all in all she was ok. Clea surely steals the film though and I gave a rating of 7 on her acting alone.