Excellent but underrated film

A Masterpiece!

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

Disinterested in kids her own age, a precious preteen girl scout from an affluent neighbourhood decides to befriend a man twice her age who mows her parents' lawn in this captivating drama from 'The Year My Voice Broke' director John Duigan. A talented director of youngsters, Duigan gets an excellent performance out of Mischa Barton in the lead role, while Sam Rockwell holds his own as the lawnmower man. Reluctant to accept her friendship because of what others may think, Rockwell is nevertheless won over by Barton's natural charm and charisma and the film becomes filled with tension from then on in. From onlookers eyeing them at a petrol station, to Rockwell touching Barton's scar at her own request, uncertainty lingers in the air as to what will be misconstrued and at what point will someone get the wrong idea about their platonic relationship and accuse Rockwell of terrible things. It is a thought-provoking film as it challenges general preconceptions out there about the inability for an older man to be friends with a younger woman with nothing else going on between them, but it is the hypocrisy of the town that they live in that is most striking here with Rockwell suspected by many of petty thievery simply because he is poor and Barton's father caring nothing about a local teenager fondling her chest because he is the son of a powerful figure in town. Not everything works here, especially how Rockwell handles a dog incident late in the piece, but it is an unexpectedly gripping ride, capped off with a magical ending.

Let me admit up front that I turned this movie off after a half-hour. I'm a big fan of quirky, low-budget movies with odd characters, but movies that attempt to satirize contemporary mores need to have characters whose actions have some relationship to the way human beings would act in the real world. I didn't believe one second of the part of this movie I saw. The parents and community cop were straw people and the worst kind of clichés. Nobody, no matter how quirky and counter-culture, would stop in the middle of a bridge, strip naked, and dive into a creek while holding up a line of traffic. If he did, the people being held up wouldn't just sit there and watch. No ten-year-old girl would know the make and model of an old pickup truck. No---these are many other scenes were just the screenwriter's lame ways of pounding into our heads that the sympathetic characters were offbeat and charming and the unsympathetic characters were stupid and lacking in imagination. I can't believe anybody would rate this movie higher than a 3 or 4. The fact that this film could even get made and released is symptomatic of how low modern movie standards have fallen. It's really bad.

When I was a little boy, my mother told me to be careful when in the company of young girls, particularly preteens. I asked her why and she said that they lied and believed the lies and that could get me into a lot of trouble I did not need. When I asked her how she knew this, she said, "Because I was a little girl once, trust me!" Well, her advice was based on the assumption that I was straight and would be interested in girls other than for occasional acquaintance. I avoided them mostly because they seemed to detect that I was a young gay boy who was 'not in the market' and just another form of competition, I suppose, so the advice was moot.This movie illustrates my mother's warnings to a tee. It ought to be required for hetero boys. On the surface, this movie seems to have a lot going for it--adequate actors all, plot, subplots, etc. You are slowly drawn in and then the tension builds which Hitchcock would have appreciated. It unfortunately loses me with the rather abrupt contrived ending. This little girl, first of all, is obviously extremely aware of her power over the people around her. She may not be obviously manipulating her parents, but nonetheless, with the lying, withholding, going along with their lies, she aids and abets. The parents mimic every Republican I've ever known, having grown up in a mixed community of both wealth and middle to low-middle class. The two young men, Sean (closeted gay attracted to Trent) and Brett (hetero gigolo servicing Kathy Quinlan while her husband barbeques himself silly) evoke every town bully I've ever run into--both gay and straight. They are just idiotic testosterone driven manimals played adequately by Mr. Mabius and Mr. Gray. The costar to the main character, Sam Rockwell (aka Trent) is extremely James Dean enough to get you to pathos and empathy for his hard luck life and lack of breaks. Actually, if one looks differently at the film, the manipulative little girl ends up being his answer to freedom. Unfortunately, in the process of plot, I assume to move things along in the time allotted, they have her implicate Trent (her supposed friend) and again, let events go where she wants them to. I think it was intended to be more about the perceived powerlessness of youngsters who are shown to be actually pulling all the strings with their deviant daydreams and behavior towards the adult world that they both long to be a part of and detest and rebel against. In life, I do NOT believe this girl would have shot the young man with the stick. I think she'd have let it happen and watched voyeuristically. Trent would have been dogmeat. Perhaps, years later as a repentant adult she'd have told a stranger what really happened or written a book and done the talk shows after having gone through some fake therapy. I just don't believe that particular character capable of that ending. I think it was obvious where she was headed from the start. She knew the power of her seductive behavior in the guise of friendship with this poor slob, Trent, and what she could do with it. She also knew how predictable her parents were and set them up constantly. This doesn't exempt them from being the most horrible parents on record for alienation of affection and misteaching of general rules of life. The parents are like the Bushes or Kennedys, externally real but internally vacant. Even when they are present, nobody is home. Like most wealthy people, they are masters of self-deception and withholding. All is surface. I think, however, the notion that those two bimbos could've raised a young woman with somewhat human attributes is silly. As most animals with genetic programming, we tend to turn out very much like those who sired us. She more likely would've toyed with this guy because of her boredom and lack of friends, but then set him up (which she does in fact) and walk away. It would've given her a sense of power, having some control. That ending would've been believable, but not very popular with audiences. Rank was famous for taking risks, however, I think they gave in to pressure to 'normalize' the message. The chance that Trent in the end would get away is not reality based either. Anyone with that much money would hire lawyers and detectives to drag Trent to justice (alive or dead) and then massage the media to conjure up and prove the false stories they would create to live with this situation. So, nice try guys, but no 10s here.

The set up for this film is just weird and off-beat enough to engage fascination without going overboard. The characters are well-observed and presented and the essence of 'don't judge a book by its cover' finely pursued. Sam Rockwell is brilliant. Unfortunately there are deep flaws. The juvenile lead, Mischa Barton, is just OK and is required to deliver some sugary nonsense at the end which her gift for acting is unable to transcend. All in an inexplicable and hurried,'tragical/magical' denouement which utterly ruins the film and the interesting balance it had achieved until that point. Sam Rockwell's character's position is hopeless but wait, 'in a single bound, Jack was free'. Tragic.