The Ballad Of Jack & Rose

THE BALLAD OF JACK & ROSE

Director : Rebecca Miller

Year : 2005

Genre : Drama

Rating : **1/2

'The Ballad Of Jack & Rose' is one of the only movies I have ever watched where I wanted it to be over a lot sooner than it was. Not because it's bad per se, but because of the bleak tone and hopeless message that is conveyed throughout the entire duration. Directed by Rebecca Miller and starring her husband, the brilliant Daniel Day Lewis, 'The Ballad Of Jack & Rose' is clearly a very personal project. As always, Lewis is brilliant and the supporting cast including Camille Belle, Catherine Keener and Paul Dano are also very good, but their actions and attitudes make them so unlikable that I hated being in their prescence and once the film was over, I knew that I will never watch the movie again.

Daniel Day Lewis plays Jack Slavin, a dying farmer who lives with his insecure daughter Rose played by Camille Belle. They live on an island off the coast of the United States which is being plagued by property developers and Jack is constantly battling with them to protect his precious wetlands. Having being abandoned by his wife years before and trying to protect his daughter from the world, Jack prevents Rose from ever leaving the island; homeschooling her and teaching her ways to survive on a tiny island. However, due to ailments and ever decreasing health, Jack believes that a woman is needed around the house. He asks his girlfriend Kathleen, who lives on the mainland with her 2 sons, to move in with him. Soon, she and her boys move in but due to her cotton wooled upbringing and insecurities, Rose can't cope with the issues of living with other people. She displays tendencies resembling psychosis such as trying to kill Kathleen multiple times and having unwanted sex with either of the two brothers. Her problems not only compromise her relationship with her fathers girlfriend, but also between Kathleen and the dying Jack. This causes massive tensions and the rest of the film chronicles how the family deals with the issues until the inevitable tragic climax.

I am not actually familiar with any of Rebecca Millers previous works, 'The Private Lives Of Pippa Lee', 'Angela' or 'Personal Velocity', so I can only judge 'The Ballad Of Jack & Rose' on it's own terms. The film is directed quite well, utilising close ups and tight sets to create a real sense of claustrophobia and reclusiveness. Watching the movie reminded in some parts of 'Dogtooth', Yorgos Lanthimos' twisted tale of incest and murder, but obviously not as graphic or as perverted. The element of incest that seems to run through the movie is handled quite well and is only truly revealed when it is least expected. Dealt with care and respectfulness, these scenes actually showcase some of the best acting in the entire film.

As always, Daniel Day Lewis gives a terrific performance and with films under his belt such as 'There Will Be Blood', 'Gangs Of New York' and 'My Left Foot', he really is becoming one of my favourite actors of all time. Just like his performance in 'My Left Foot', he is able to give a vulnerability to Jack Slavin which is not played for sympathy, but for realism and this gives his character a recognisably human trait. This makes it easier to identify more with him than with the other characters in the film who are all basically conventional archetypes. Due to the personal nature of the project, both Miller and Lewis treat Jack's condition with respect and believability. Camille Belle plays Rose, Jack's daughter and she plays the part much more in the vain of a caricature. That's not to say it's bad because she does give a great performance as the damaged young Rose. Camille Belle will probably be known for starring in Roland Emmerich's disastrous '10,000 BC' or the remake of the classic slasher 'When A Stranger Calls' and unlike these movies, she is given a part which shows her true acting abilities.

The supporting cast includes Katherine Keener, who is always a joy to watch and is well cast as Jack's suffering girlfriend and Ryan McDonald and Paul Dano as her 2 sons. Of course, both Lewis and Dano would eventually star together in Paul Thomas Anderson's 'There Will Be Blood' in which they both play evil, conniving people, so it is interesting to see them play much more down to earth roles. However, while the supporting cast is good and work well together, it is they who make 'The Ballad Of Jack & Rose' such a difficult watch. I'm sure that Rebecca Miller meant for these characters to be sympathetic and relatable, but the dialogue they are given and the actions they do come across as ugly, mean spirited and somewhat disturbing. This alienates the audience from them and destroys the main story between Jack & Rose.

There are some scenes in 'The Ballad Of Jack & Rose' that are difficult to watch. While the sex scenes are not at all graphic, their unexpected nature and the tone set by them is very depressing. There is one particular scene where Rose strips herself and walks downstairs to tempt one of Kathleens sons into having sex with her. Though you don't see anything, it is deeply disturbing and sad and watching a young girl debase herself without even knowing it just emphasises how damaged she really is. As mentioned before, there is an element of incest that runs through the heart of 'The Ballad Of Jack & Rose' but it doesn't rear it's head until the end of the film. To me, this seemed unneccesarily disturbing, but if Miller put in to shock then I guess it served it's purpose. In someways the title, which mirrors the names of the leads in 'Titanic'. recognises the same doomed love that Jack and Rose faced in James Cameron's 1997 epic; a love which can only end in tragedy.

'The Ballad Of Jack & Rose' premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, the mecca of independant films, but when released in cinemas in 2005,  the film divided critics. Some saw it as an ugly distracted drama while others saw it as a well made piece of American cinema. This critical reception clearly damaged it's box office potential though and the film barely scraped it's minimal $1.5 million budget, making only $59,000 on it's opening weekend.

'The Ballad Of Jack & Rose' has good acting and is well directed, however I can't recommend it. It is misjudged in tone and scenes which are meant to make us feel sympathy only disturb. To me, it is not one of Daniel Day Lewis' best works and I wish that the script writing had been supervised. It is a well made, well acted and well shot mess of a film that could have been so much better than it was.