The Ballad of Jack and Rose   
Directed & Written by: Rebecca Miller
Starring: Daniel Day-Lewis, Catherine Keener, Camilla Belle, Jason Lee, Jena Malone, Paul Dano, Ryan McDonald, Susanna Thompson.
Country:   USA

Two and a Half Snakes

Reviewed by Hal Gray

Eden Isn't What It's Cracked Up To Be.

Logline: A dying hippie gets frantic about what's going to happen to his cloistered daughter and commune as developers eat away at the doorstep.

The story: It's the mid ‘80s and Jack Slavin's idealist communal comrades have long decamped for the new world, leaving behind Jack to raise his beautiful and naïve daughter. How could she be anything but blissfully ignorant, stuck on an island off the New England coast? And now the world Jack despises has come to root him out: a developer is building cookie-cutter houses nearby and he wants to buy Jack out.

All sensible people will see that Jack's battle is a futile one. But, it's not just Jack's world that's dying. So is he. Not his calcifying brain, mind you, but a weak heart.

He invites an old flame to come and care for them. Actually, he bribes her with cold hard cash. She brings her two teen-age sons along, which is, as far as his daughter Rose's welfare is concerned, like inviting a snake into the besieged Eden. Rose is deflowered (symbolism abounds at every turn); Jack realizes his cause is lost and his love for Rose is a tiny bit skewed; and, well, there are some dramatics. ‘Nuf said.

There is enough here for two or three stories (or one good one), but Ballad misses the mark as screenwriter and director Rebecca Miller brushes up against the more interesting aspects of human quirks and foibles and slides right on by. For one, Jack—a rich man by inheritance—is self-centred and arrogant and will buy people off in the blink of an eye. When the developer tries to buy him out, there's no light that goes in Jack's head that this is exactly how he treats people. This alone might have saved the picture. For another, his sexual feelings for Rose, while coming out of left field, keep right on going in right. There's no examination of where it came from or what it might mean.

Daniel Day-Lewis (Mr. Rebecca Miller) is one of my favourite actors to the point where he can do no wrong—until now. In his defense, his character is left grasping at ideas that, upon Jack's reflection, either might make him whole or destroy him and make his a memorable role. It's just not there in the script and Day-Lewis doesn't seem committed to Jack because of it.

Camilla Belle, as Rose, doesn't have much depth either. Perhaps her inscrutable face holds her back and causes a believability gap for some of things she does—like offering herself up to the boys. Catherine Keener, as the mother of the two boys, should be as mad as hell with Jack's indifference to her, but she doesn't play it that way. Rick Dano, as the youngest son, is suitably punk-smarmy and is the snake in the house, but that's hardly fair as real innocence is not vulnerable to juvenile caprice. Jason Lee (a gardener) and Beau Bridges (the developer) give us hints of other interesting stories, but we don't get to see that developed. Complete kudos to Ryan McDonald as Rodney, the older, introverted gay son. His timing and intelligence shone through in his scenes with Rose.

One has to wonder if Miller meant Ballad as an indictment of the 60s' counter culture or an attempt to finally bury it. Whatever the ‘message', it wasn't written plainly enough. 

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