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'Georgia Rule' movie review |
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Written by Roger Moore, McClatchy-Tribune
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Wednesday, 09 May 2007 |
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GEORGIA RULE
2 stars (out of 5)
Cast: Lindsay Lohan, Jane Fonda, Dermot Mulroney, Felicity Huffman, Cary Elwes
Director: Garry Marshall.
Running time: 1 hour, 53 minutes.
Industry rating: R for "sexual content, brief language and a drug reference."
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Are there movie giggles to be found in allegations of child abuse? If so, "Georgia Rule" is way ahead of the curve.
This well-acted, sometimes amusing but flat-out tone-deaf laugher is about a granny who is supposed to straighten out a problem grandchild over the course of a long Idaho summer. It is the oddest R-rated Mother's Day present ever.
Filmmaker Garry Marshall, who once made millions of women identify with a high-priced hooker ("Pretty Woman") who meets her (paying) Prince Charming, takes another wild stab at the cutting edge with this one, a movie that will leave you in slack-jawed amazement as it lurches between farce and melodrama.
Lindsay Lohan is Rachel, an out-of-control teen who storms out of her mother's car on their way from San Francisco to Hull, Idaho. Rachel is such a vile wild child that her rich, indulgent, tuned-out mother (Felicity Huffman) has decided that a summer with the mother she grew up hating (Jane Fonda) is the only hope for the kid.
Rachel has the self-confidence of the sexy and sexually predatory. She bullies her way into a passing car driven by the town vet (Dermot Mulroney). She brazenly comes on to him (and every man she meets) and tactlessly and profanely confronts him, her rules-obsessed Granny and pretty much everybody else in the quiet, friendly town in the heart of Idaho Mormon country. Lohan plays the rude girl to a T.
Fonda seems miscast as a stickler for Georgia's "rules."
"You live here, you work. Georgia rule."
"Everyone's savable. That's the rule."
But Fonda's Yes-I-can-still-wear-jeans performance is one of the ways "Georgia Rule" defies stereotypes. Yeah, this is the middle of nowhere. But Granny must have Showtime. She's hip to the big, wide world. She can cuss with the best of them, even if she still hands out bars of soap for those who take "the Lord's name in vain."
The Mormon screenwriter Mark Andrus ("As Good as It Gets") makes mention of the town's "family values" but crosses several lines as Rachel meets and seduces (in a particularly crass moment) the local hunk, a mission-bound Mormon played by Garrett Hedlund. A "Mormon Mafia" of friends of hunky boy's real girlfriend, Plain June, stalk the California tart.
And then comes to the whole child-molestation allegation subplot. Rachel's drug use, her promiscuity and her pathological lying undercut her credibility. She lies to get her way, lies to test people, lies to practice lying. But something has to explain her behavior.
Lohan dances through this bad-girl performance as if the part is ripped from her own life. She has spent the past week atop the online viral video charts thanks to snaps of her allegedly sharing cocaine in a night club toilet stall. Her misadventures off the set give her ever-braless hussy performance on-camera street cred.
Not that that's a good thing.
But for all that, for the startling changes of tone from one-liner sex comedy to disturbing mother-daughter-granddaughter "issues" picture, I wouldn't be shocked if "Georgia Rule" strikes a chord with the Oprah-Dr. Phil demographic. Georgia Rule is funny, sentimental, post-feminist and occasionally downright disturbing.
Lower your expectations and your jaw, and you might find this the most watchable fiasco of the summer. | Only registered users can write comments.
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